Quebec will pay $9.5 billion in debt interest this year, equivalent to all the income tax paid by 1.5 million Quebecers, says think tank MEI.
In other words, almost 85 percent of all the people in Montreal will pay all their income tax to just cover the debt interest.
“The government is no longer paying one or two per cent interest on new debt, and it shows in the budget,” Renaud Brossard, senior director of communications at the MEI, said in a release March 21. With increasing interest rates, Finance Minister Eric Girard should have focused on returning to a balanced budget, MEI said.
But the Quebec government is projecting a shortfall of $4 billion for 2023–2024. It does not expect to balance its budget until 2027….