What Should Be Done with a “House in Order”? An Economic Perspective on Post-Liberal Quebec

The Quebec provincial election of October 2018 marked the end of an era. It saw the Quebec Liberal Party (QLP) suffer the worst defeat of its history and the election of agovernment, the first in a half century, not headed by either the Liberals or the Parti Québécois. The election of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) suggests a political realignment. Yet, whether or not the 2018 vote also ended the era of budget austerity remains uncertain. Combined with a modest growth in program spending, public-sector reforms and cutbacks might, under the new administration, affect public services and once again generate opposition and resistance to budget austerity. In this article, we address this question of change versus continuity in three steps. First, we provide a retrospective account of budget policies under recent Liberal governments in Québec. Second, we present and discuss the CAQ’s evolving views on public budgeting and economic policy. Finally, we analyze the new government’s actions in its first year in office. While it is hard to discern a clean break in budgetary policies, the CAQ government might surprise us yet: it has a leader largely unconstrained by his party and whose ideas about budgeting and the public sector depart from neoliberal mantras. In addition, he has nationalist policy ideas, particularly around economic development, that might spur significant departures if they are aggressively implemented