Quebec Finance Minister Eric Girard delivered Tuesday the most challenging budget of his mandate with a projected $11-billion deficit for the next fiscal year.
He said that, in real dollars, it could be the highest in the province’s history.
The deficit for 2024-25 is more than three times higher than what the government had forecast for 2023-24.
Of the latest projected deficit, $4 billion is structural, Girard said, and the rest is related to new spending and managing the province’s debt. He attributed increased spending to expenses that were considered temporary during the pandemic, but have since become permanent.
New collective agreements with the public sector
