With the rising cost of petrol, groceries and almost everything… the parties did not wait for the official launch of the election campaign to put forward various proposals to correct this. This will obviously be a major theme of the campaign.
At the beginning of August, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) launched an online petition to encourage the various competing parties to make inflation a priority issue.
François Vincent, vice-president of the Confederation of African Football, believes that “with no increase in inflation in decades, this topic will occupy a central place in the upcoming election campaign”.
Especially since the beginning of the year, the phenomenon continues to grow.
“We can already see this in the promises that each party wants to put money back into the households’ pockets,” notes Luke Goodbot, owner of the Research Chair in Taxation and Public Finance at the University of Sherbrooke.
According to a pre-election report published in mid-August, the government should, by 2024-2025, increase its revenue by $19.33 billion than projected in Gerrard’s latest budget.
However, they will have to pay attention to the key rate, which the Bank of Canada may continue to raise to fight inflation, warns Mr. Godbout.
The expert believes that the parties “need to ask themselves whether this is the right time to return billions of dollars into household pockets that will stimulate the economy at a time when the central bank is seeking to do the opposite.”
He believes that “if the political parties want at any cost to return money to the pockets of families to combat inflation, it is necessary to give priority in the short term to measures targeting the most disadvantaged groups.”
While the Legault government favored the distribution of checks since the beginning of the year ($200 to $275 for the poor in January, $500 for incomes of $100,000 and less in March and another amount in December), the Minister for Advancement of the Finance Department, Eric Gerard, finally said a few before days on possible tax cuts, without specifying their size.
Liberals, like conservatives, had previously committed themselves to tax cuts. Eric Doehmy has also promised to suspend gas taxes, while PQ leader Paul Saint-Pierre Blamondon has floated the idea of setting gas prices at $1.60 per liter.
Quebec Solidere is proposing measures such as raising the minimum wage, freezing Hydro-Québec rates, controlling rents and doubling the solidarity tax credit.
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