Finance Minister Éric Girard hinted at a tax cut for Quebecers, preceded by a second check to fight inflation.
• Also read: Explosion of income and tax cuts
Minister Girard was asked to comment on the Auditor General’s report, which revealed on Monday that inflation and the economic recovery had all but wiped out the 2022 deficit forecast and suggested his government intended to cut taxes and issue new checks against to distribute the inflation if she is re-elected.
“We’re going to go straight there with personal income tax cuts. It will boost the labor supply, it will encourage people to work more, it will boost the economy and it will help generate wealth,” Mr Girard assured QUB radio in an interview on Monday.
“If we look at the tax burden on Quebecers compared to other citizens in Canada or North America, the tax burden in Quebec is about 5% higher. We want to reduce this tax burden,” he added.
However, the inflation rate, which peaked in June in North America, should finally reach 6.5% in Quebec in 2022, well above the forecast rate of 4.7%.
“So that warrants an additional one-off action to combat the rising cost of living,” Mr Girard said when asked about the possibility of sending a second check to the majority of Quebecers.
Recession: one in three chance
In addition, the looming economic slowdown is not overly worrying the finance minister.
The risk of the province falling into recession by the end of 2023 remains 35%, he said, a forecast unchanged since the beginning of the summer.
“The most likely scenario is no recession,” he said.