Q&A: Finance Minister Eric Girard on Quebec's historic budget deficit

Finance Minister Éric Girard tabled an historic budget on Tuesday, with a projected $11 billion deficit and a delayed timeline for balancing the books to the 2029-2030 fiscal year. 

The finance minister spoke to CTV News reporter Kelly Greig after the budget was tabled in Quebec City and what it means for Quebecers.

Watch the video above for the full interview.

CTV: You said that this would be a responsible budget, we are now facing the biggest projected deficit in Quebec history: $11 billion. What about this is responsible?

GIRARD: Well, there's some temporary factors that go into this. First, under the weight of the interest rate increase, the economy has stopped. Also, with the drought that we had last summer, we were not able to export hydroelectricity as much as we would have liked.

So there's some temporary aspects and at the same time, we wanted to make sure that there is improvement and accessibility to our public health care and public schools. And therefore at the same time that we're investing in human resources in our network in technological change, governance, and health care and education, we also have these temporary shortages of revenues. So this combination makes for a high deficit now, but we will manage it. We're committed to restoring a fiscal balance and we will do it.

CTV: The priorities are health care and education. We're seeing $360 million for access to education, yet there's a huge backlog in terms of surgeries and other procedures. How will Quebecers see a change from this budget?

GIRARD: I think what you're seeing is, first, an investment in human resources. We did these investments to make some structural changes to absolute improvement into organizational change. But we're also doing governance changes with Santé Quebec. We're also doing changes in terms of technology, like the [digitization of files], all these aspects. All these changes that are being done by Minister [Christian] Dubé will have a permanent impact and will ultimately improve services. This is what we all want.

CTV: There is a review this spring of the finances and that includes the consumption tax. Will you be changing the provincial sales tax?

GIRARD: No. It's not part of the scope of what we want to do.

CTV: As of today, what difference will Quebecers see with this budget that will improve their lives?

GIRARD: I think what you will see is that because we have labour shortages in education and health care, you will see that given the improvement that we've done in working conditions, the organizational benefit that we're getting through these negotiations if we are delivering health care, education services, there's a very important human aspect to it. And to the extent that we succeed in reducing labor shortage, you will see a difference.