Lots of unhappy campers in Quebec
Austerity measures leave many disgruntled
It seems many people have some kind of a beef.
School boards, childcare workers, nurses, doctors, mayors, hundreds involved in cultural endeavours, you name it.
The list of sectors of Quebec society upset over the sting of Finance Minister Carlos Leitão’s June austerity budget and the spending cuts looming in future budgets has people on edge and on their guard.
Add into the mix disgruntled municipal workers upset with the government’s attempt to settle their pension deficit situation and the scene is set for a summer of funding uncertainty.
Nobody expects the kind of “maple spring” student disruptions of 2012 that regularly paralyzed the city, but issues will be simmering.
The private childcare network, for example, has announced plans for five one-day closings over the next few weeks as a way of protesting a freeze in their subsidies.
Quebec’s movie producers, directors, actors and companies have banded together to protest cuts in tax credits to the film and television industry.
The province’s medical specialists eagerly await the results of negotiations over their future wages.
While not directly budget-related, the group most likely to make waves is the coalition of 65,000 municipal workers affected by the pension law that the government tabled just as the National Assembly was recessing June 13.
Those workers last week floated the idea of rotating illegal strikes to protest Bill 3 which, among other things, abolishes indexing of pensions for thousands of retired workers to refill indebted pension plans.
They managed to get everyone’s attention last Wednesday when one of their protests veered out of control and protesters set a fire in front of Montreal City Hall and sprayed down the building with fire hoses.
City equipment, including fire trucks, were used while police cars blocked the street.
Mayor Denis Coderre was furious. The Quebec government, responsible for the bill, said it was unacceptable.
“Regardless of the authors, all acts of violence or property destruction must be condemned,” said Premier Philippe Couillard. “Nobody is above the law. It’s even more worrisome when it involves the people who are themselves responsible for applying the law.”
But the situation is not getting better. On Thursday, the city of SteThérèse announced the refusal of its municipal workers to do overtime shifts forced them to cancel Fête nationale celebrations.
What it means is there’s a fair bit of anger and frustration out there, despite Quebec’s call for everyone to tighten their belts and work togeth- er toward balancing the province’s books by 2015-16.
It’s not clear everyone is willing to play ball. And part of the problem is some of the cuts and freezes are not yet known.
In an unusual move owing to the late provincial election, MNAs will be spending part of July examining annual spending estimates which determine how much money each government activity gets.
Here is a partial list of unresolved issues unlikely to disappear soon.
School boards:
Hit in the 2013-14 budget by Parti Québécois government spending cuts which they, in turn, partially passed along to rate payers, the province’s school boards were again targeted this year in the Liberal budget.
Not only was there no rollback of the previous cuts, the government slashed another $150 million for 26 school boards, including three anglophone boards.
The hit to the anglophone boards is about $15 million, with officials saying the Riverside, Eastern Townships and Western Quebec boards are the most affected.
According to David D’Aoust, president of the Quebec English School Boards Association, which represents the boards, the cut amounts to about $150 per student.
“We’re already in crisis mode (after last year’s cuts),” D’Aoust said. “And now the minister has announced we have to increase taxes.”
The English boards pared back administrative costs after last year’s cuts in the hope of avoiding any cuts to direct student services.
“This year will be a struggle,” D’Aoust said.
Here’s an interesting fact: The Féderation des commission scolaires du Québec estimates various governments have cut a total of $800 million from their budgets since 2010. Together, they have declared a total of $94 million in deficits in 2012-13.
The bottom line is that in some school boards, these new cuts could mean an increase in ratepayer taxes of about eight per cent.
The school board issue is doubly complicated because some people, members of the Coalition Avenir Québec in particular, think of them as wasteful expenses that should be abolished outright.
Daycare centres:
As any group will tell you, a freeze is as bad as a cut in an era of spiralling costs, and the Association des garderies privées du Québec has denounced its freeze, which comes on top of last year’s cuts.
Last week, members of the association — which represents 337 subsidized daycare centres across Quebec — voted in favour of pressure tactics to be deployed in the fall.
To cushion the blow on parents, the association says it will organize the five closed days with parents to minimize the inconvenience.
Quebec’s generous subsided childcare system is a hot topic, and the financing question is far from settled. The previous Parti Québécois government proposed raising the price of subsidized daycare from $7 a day to $8 a day.
The Liberals rejected that idea and have instead indexed it. The price will go up by 30 cents to $7.30 a day. There is no real consensus on what is the best formula.
Medical specialists:
This is another issue left hanging. In the 2014-15 budget, Leitão set aside $285 million more for the province’s medical specialists, even if a 2006 agreement between the government foresaw $540 million more for 2014-15. The money was designed as a catch-up for Quebec doctors, who have long complained about being underpaid.
The government now is pleading poverty. The budget suggests the government hopes to delay $255 million in pay to future years and has opened negotiations with them.
There is no deal yet.
Cuts in tax credits:
The Leitão 20 per cent cut in tax credits for multimedia and technology did not make big waves at first, but now groups benefiting from them have sounded the alarm.
They warn that shareholders of big firms such as Ubisoft, Activision and Warner will think twice about investing further in Quebec and that could slow growth in what was a booming sector.
Cuts to tax credits for the film and television industry also did not go over well. Last week, key players in the audiovisual industry joined together to say the cuts will affect the lives of hundreds of producers, directors, scriptwriters, actors and companies involved in production, post-production, dubbing and visual effects.
The Association nationale des éditeurs de livres is protesting the cut in tax credits to its sector and say it will lead to significant losses in revenues and jobs in the book business.
Shelved projects and delayed promises:
Off the top, Transport Minister Robert Poëti last week presented plans to spend about $4.9 billion on road work for the whole province over the next two years. That’s about $700 million less than the year before as the Liberals rolled back their election infrastructure promises.
Although there’s a long list of projects which will go ahead, there’s another list of things not happening.
The government’s 2014-2024 infrastructure plan includes $1.5 billion for new métro cars, as well as maintaining work on the Turcot and de La Vérendrye interchange.
Put off is the extension of Highway 19 and the Espace pour la vie project connected to the 375th anniversary celebrations of the city of Montreal.
Classified as “under study,” are plans to cover the Ville-Marie autoroute in Montreal, rebuild the StPierre interchange, the Train de l’Ouest and replacing the roof on the Olympic Stadium.
Treasury Board officials insist “under study,” does not mean the projects are in limbo.
The rollback that made headlines last week was Quebec’s decision Thursday to shelve a $160-million development project to revitalize the lower St-Laurent area downtown: the Carré St-Laurent project.