Thursday, December 15, 2011

Quebec Deficit on Track for Elimination in 2013

Surly Hamiltonian has been going on about Quebec's better deficit performance than Ontario for a while. This article has more evidence of just how much better Quebec is doing:

"The happier news is that this has enabled Quebec to remain on course toward its ambitious goal of balancing the provincial budget by 2013.

So far in the current fiscal year, which ends March 31, Quebec is on course to reduce its deficit to $3.8 billion, or about 1.1 per cent of the province’s total economic output.

That’s better than the average of 1.8 per cent among all provinces.

It’s far lower than in Ontario, where the estimated deficit remains uncomfortably high at about 2.5 per cent of provincial output and where budget balance isn’t predicted before 2017."

Admittedly elsewhere in the article the Quebec government is doing this by raising taxes significantly. However the Quebec deficit is remarkably close to disappearing, even in challenging economic conditions. Ontario unfortunately is continuing to lard on debt, with not a lot of relief in sight. Even sadder is that the mainstream media in Ontario is not making these comparisons.

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