Is the Budget Balance Fragile or Robust? Quebec Faces Health Funding Challenges

The Government of Quebec is currently enjoying a balanced budget. Following years of tight budgets, the province’s finances are now in the black. Is the balance sustainable? To assess the strength of the current budget balance, the IdQ analyzed several forward-looking budget scenarios based on data from the Government of Quebec and Signal49 Research. The reference scenario based on Ministère des Finances projections points to a surplus in the medium term. The other scenarios establish successive optimum annual growth rates for health spending at 2.9 per cent, 4.2 per cent, and 5.2 per cent, resulting from weak economic growth and a Canada Health Transfer that stays the same beyond 2017.