Here are the highlights of Quebec's spring budget

Quebec tabled its budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year on Tuesday. Here are the highlights of the budget presented by Finance Minister Eric Girard:

• The Quebec government will provide a one-time $500 payment to 6.4 million Quebecers with incomes up to $100,000 to help mitigate the impact of high inflation. This measure will cost the government $3.2 billion. The amount will be paid automatically by Revenu Québec to taxpayers who have filed their tax returns for the year 2021.
• The deficit for the 2022-2023 fiscal year is expected to be $6.5 billion, or $2 billion less than projected in the March 2021 budget. A return to a balanced budget is still projected for 2027-2028. If the contribution to the Generations Fund is excluded, the budget would be balanced as early as 2023-2024.
• The Minister of Finance is planning an envelope of $5.2 billion over five years to restore the health-care system. The details of this plan to "rebuild" the system should be announced later by Health Minister Christian Dubé.
• The government estimates the total financial impact of the measures put in place in the health care system to deal with the pandemic at $18.3 billion. This impact is calculated over a five-year period, up to 2024-2025. For fiscal years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 alone, the financial impact is $7.6 billion and $7.2 billion, respectively.
• Growth in health and human services spending will reach 6.3 per cent in 2022-2023 and 4.5 per cent in 2023-2024 and 2024-2025. In education, projected spending growth is expected to reach 5.4 per cent in 2022-23, 4.0 per cent in 2023-24, and 3.0 per cent in 2024-25.
• In order to promote access to housing in a context of rising rent costs and low vacancy rates, Quebec is devoting $634 million over six years to increase the supply of social housing. These investments will make it possible to complete the delivery of 3,500 units under the AccèsLogis program, in addition to building 1,000 additional units under the Quebec Affordable Housing Program.
• The government forecasts that the Quebec economy will grow by 2.7 per cent in 2022 and 2 per cent in 2023. By 2021, GDP had jumped 6.3 per cent, following a sharp 5.5 per cent decline in 2020.
• The gross debt-to-GDP ratio will be 43.1 per cent in 2022 and the government plans to lower it to 41.9 per cent in 2026. This compares with 52.5 per cent in 2016 and 46.8 per cent in 2021.
• If net debt (total government liabilities minus financial assets) is taken into account, Quebec's net debt-to-GDP ratio is 39.8 per cent, higher than the Canadian average of 33 per cent. British Columbia has the best record at 16.6 per cent and Newfoundland and Labrador is last at 43.5 per cent (Ontario is at 40.8 per cent, New Brunswick at 32.5 per cent).

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on March 22, 2022.