Québec City, March 30, 2010 – The Chair of the Conseil du trésor and Minister responsible for Government Administration, Ms. Monique Gagnon-Tremblay, today announced that the 2010 2014 Action Plan to Reduce and Control Expenditures Public Expenditures: Responsible Choices, will make it possible to reduce the public expenditure growth objective from 3.2% to 2.8%, starting in 2011 2012.
Taking into account the health contribution announced in the 2010 2011 Budget, the expenditure growth rate will decrease to 2.9% for 2010 2011 and 2.2% for the next three years. This contribution makes it possible, on the one hand, to increase direct funding of health sector establishments and, on the other hand, to reduce the growth of program spending even more.
“Given the state of public finances and Québec’s debt level as well as demographic challenges faced by the Québec government, the restoration of fiscal balance is a priority and is ever more important,” Ms. Gagnon-Tremblay affirmed.
Québec controlled its expenditures well from 2003-2004 to 2009-2010 with an annual average expenditure growth of 4.8% compared to an annual average growth of 7.6% in the other provinces. Québec ranks second in Canada with this result. Only British Columbia performed better, with an annual average expenditure growth of 4.3%.
The efforts made by the government during implementation of the Plan to Restore Fiscal Balance made it possible to limit expenditure growth to 3.8% in 2009 2010. This result could be achieved due to nearly $900 million in rationalization efforts in all departments combined, despite substantial unforeseen expenditures. The reduction of program spending growth for 2010 2011 represents a $1.2-billion rationalization effort compared to the 4.8% average annual expenditure growth from 2003 2004 to 2009 2010. “All expenditure sectors and all departments contributed,” the Minister pointed out.
The $1.8 billion in program spending growth in 2010 2011 is allocated to health and education as the top priorities. The Health sector will benefit from a $988 million increase, or 3.7%. Taking into account the amounts from the health contribution, total health expenditure growth is 5%.
The education budget will benefit from a $316-million increase, up 2.2%, which will make it possible to cover the system costs and continue the reforms in progress.
To achieve these expenditure reduction objectives and ensure delivery of services to the public in key sectors, the government has made some major decisions:
“We are continuing our ongoing and balanced rationalization efforts, while ensuring maintenance of direct public services and investing where the needs are the most pressing,” Ms. Gagnon-Tremblay concluded.
