Quebec to trim income tax rate and boost strategic borrowing

Second annual budged surplus recorded

MONTREAL • Quebec will cut income taxes ahead of a scheduled election next year after Premier Philippe Couillard’s government confirmed its second consecutive budget surplus.

The province posted a surplus of $2.36 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, according to a fiscal update released Tuesday by Finance Minister Carlos Leitao, who reiterated the books will be balanced in the current fiscal year.

Quebec’s commitment to balanced budgets, together with a decline in the debtto-gross domestic product ratio, has helped turn Canada’s second-most populous province into a fiscal star of sorts.

In June, S&P Global Ratings upgraded Quebec to AA-, its fourth-highest level, from A+, marking the first time the province has enjoyed a better standing than neighbouring Ontario, whose debt is rated A+.

The fiscal update “confirms our determination to concretely improve the quality of life and standard of living of Quebec families,’’ Leitao said Tuesday at a press conference in Quebec City. Last fiscal year’s result boosts Quebec’s accumulated surpluses to $4.55 billion as of March. “Our public finances are solid.” of earned income to 15 per cent from 16 per cent as of the start of 2017 — a change that will benefit more than 4.2 million taxpayers and cost the government an additional $1.08 billion, the finance ministry said. When factoring in the elimination of a health care levy and the increase in the basic personal exemption that were announced earlier, Quebeckers will see their annual tax burden That’s about 2 percentage points higher than Prince Edward Island, the secondplace province, DBRS said.

Quebec’s economy is firing on all cylinders, with the October unemployment rate of 6.1 per cent hovering near all-time lows and companies desperate for workers in some sectors. Joblessness across Canada averaged 6.3 per cent last month.

Economic growth this year will be 2.6 per cent, Leitao said Tuesday, within the range of 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent that the minister provided in September. Leitao’s March budget had targeted growth of 1.7 per cent for 2017.

Growth next year will probably be 1.8 per cent, exceeding a 1.6 per cent forecast that Leitao made in March.

The surplus for 2016-17 comes after a $2 billion contribution to the Generations Fund, created in 2006 to reduce net debt.

Assets of the Generations Fund, run by the Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec, totalled about $10.5 billion as of March and are forecast to more than double by 2022. rules are vital to consumers’ everyday lives and essential to preserving the internet as we know it today — an open marketplace where websites large and small compete on equal terms and where information and ideas move freely,” said Jonathan Schwantes, the advocacy group’s senior policy counsel.

Two of the FCC’s five voting commissioners signalled they will oppose Pai’s plan.

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel derided Pai’s plan as “ridiculous and offensive to the millions of Americans who use the internet every day.” Commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn skewered Pai’s proposals as “a giveaway to the nation’s largest communications companies, at the expense of consumers and innovation.”

Rosenworcel and Clyburn are the lone Democrats on the FCC.