Quebec’s fiscal picture improves for 2020-2021

Thus, the deficit decreased by $2 billion compared to the previous estimate of $12 billion, which was revealed at the end of May. When the budget was presented in March, the projected deficit was 15 billion.

The government said in a statement that the emergency government aid enabled it to collect more corporate taxes by supporting its profits. In addition, strong growth in retail sales and new housing in the first quarter of 2021 was positively reflected in revenue from consumption taxes.Quebec adds.

The result: a 1.4% increase in Startgross domestic product Real in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the last quarter of 2020, when last March’s budget forecast was dropping instead. Government revenue from self-sourced grew by $967 million.

Quebec adds that portfolio spending has also fallen by $1.8 billion, because needs are lower than expected. The government states that it invested $13.4 billion to support the economy and the health system during the year.

It should be noted that this year total expenses would have increased by 15%., Minister Gerard said, in an interview with Economic Zone. There have been very important efforts to deal with the pandemic, to support the “keepers”…thus, more planned spending leads to potentially less spending. In theory, the average unrealized spending of the Quebec government is $2 billion.

Minister Girard also stresses that private sector economists expect growth of close to 6% of Quebec’s economy, more than a percentage point above 4% and dust levels indicated in the government’s latest budget.

And if the owner of the financial chains realizes that this improvement can actually have a positive effect on the budget deficit and return in time to the zero deficit, then he asserts that We must be careful: we are talking about the fourth wave, about the need to speed up vaccination. It’s early in the process.He says it is not yet time to revise forecasts for the 2021-2022 fiscal year.

What’s really important is the structural deficit that we estimated at 6.5 billion. This number will have to be revised in the fall.

Mr. Girard also repeated that ذلك Health security is essential to economic growth.

Addressing the labor shortage

The person who also holds the position of Minister of Economy, due to the resignation of Pierre Fitzgibbon from the Cabinet, confirms that the Quebec government is already attacking for lack of workers in various sectors of the economy.

The pandemic could have exacerbated this situation. At the moment, Mr. Gerrard said, there are approximately 175,000 people who are currently out of work and were employed in February 2020. We see that in all industrialized countries. It’s normal to have a group of people who are not working. You have to pair, and that’s the job [du ministre du Travail] Jean Boulet.

The Minister also mentioned several hundreds of thousands of people between the ages of 15 and 34, Those who are not studying, working or training, as well as Quebecers who retire too early.

The minister said that immigration also represents a large pool of employment.

There are currently about 150,000 vacancies in Quebec.