Quebec budget includes $500 handout, more for health care
CBC
Quebec will give $500 to everyone who makes $100,000 or less as a way to offset the rising cost of living, the government announced in its budget for the coming fiscal year, tabled Tuesday in the National Assembly.
In all, about 6.4 million taxpayers will receive the handout — a one-time payment that represents a $3.2-billion expenditure for the province.
Finance Minister Eric Girard said the province's swift economic rebound — a 6.3 per cent increase in real GDP growth last year, after the economy previously shrank by 5.5 per cent — allowed the province to "help Quebecers cope with the sharp increase in the cost of living that we have seen in recent months."
Girard said he expects inflation to persist for at least the first half of the year.
Low-income Quebecers who already qualified for a tax credit announced last fall stand to get a combined assistance of $775 for those living alone or $1,400 for a couple.
The opposition parties in Quebec's National Assembly dismissed the payments to everyone earning $100,000 after taxes as a ploy by Premier François Legault's CAQ government to get votes ahead of the fall election.
Carlos Leitão, the finance critic for the Liberal opposition, said the province would have been better off freezing electricity rates.
"The entire budget seems to have been structured to deliver a significant payment to over six million Quebecers just before the election," he said.
Manon Massé, co-spokesperson for Québec Solidaire, said it would have been better for the province to have offered more targeted benefits for low-income residents.
"The CAQ makes us believe that the richest experience inflation like the ordinary world. It is not true," she said.
Despite Quebec's strong economy, the projected deficit for the coming year stands at $6.5 billion.
Quebec is only expected to return to a balanced budget six years from now, in 2027-28.
Last year, the government suspended a law that required the province to balance the budget within five years.
Girard said the GDP growth is expected to drop back down to 2.7 per cent in 2022.
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