Study
| EST. READ TIME 1 MIN.Quebec government spending reached highest level on record in 2021 at $15,562 per person
Quebec Premiers and Provincial Government Spending
- This bulletin reviews annual per-person program spending (inflation-adjusted) by Quebec premiers from 1965 to 2021.
- Real per-person program spending increased significantly from $2,942 in 1965 to $15,562 in 2021.
- The year of highest overall per-person program spending was under Premier François Legault in 2021 at $15,562. Legault also had the second-highest year of per-person spending (2020) at $15,260. Even excluding COVID-related spending, Premier Legault holds the record for the highest per-person spending levels in Quebec at $14,487 (2021) and $13,705 (2020).
- Premier Jean Lesage is excluded from this analysis because there is only one year of data available for his six-year term. Lesage aside, Premier Jean-Jacques Bertrand recorded the highest average annual increase in per-person spending during his time in office (10.0 percent), however, this was over a relatively short term of just one year (1969). At 9.4 percent, Premier Bourassa recorded the second highest average annual growth in per-person spending over his first term (1970-1976). François Legault recorded the third highest average increase at 7.3 percent, and Premier Daniel Johnson Jr. recorded the fourth highest at 6.9 percent.
- During the terms of all other premiers, the average annual increase in per-person spending was below 3.0 percent.
- Premier Jacques Parizeau stands out as the only premier to cut the average annual change in per-person spending (-0.4 percent).
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Tegan Hill
Director, Alberta Policy, Fraser Institute
Tegan Hill is Director, Alberta Policy at the Fraser Institute. She holds a Bachelor of Economics and a Master’s Degree inPublic Policy from the University of Calgary. Ms. Hill’s articles have appeared in major Canadian newspapers including the Globe and Mail, National Post, and Ottawa Citizen. She specializes in government spending, taxation, and debt.… Read more -
Yanick Labrie
Senior Fellow, Fraser InstituteYanick Labrie, Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute, is a health economist and public-policy consultant living in Montreal. He currentlyserves as an adjunct economist at HEC Montreal’s Healthcare Management Hub. Mr. Labrie’s career in health policy spans more than fifteen years. He has worked as an economist at the Montreal Economic Institute, the Center for Interuniversity Research and Analysis on Organizations (CIRANO), and was a lecturer at HEC Montréal’s Institute of Applied Economics. He authored or co-authored more than 40 research papers and studies related to health care and pharmaceutical policies. Many of his articles have appeared in the Globe and Mail, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, La Presse, and Le Devoir, among other newspapers. He is frequently invited to participate in conferences and debates, and to comment on economic affairs in the media. He has been invited to give testimonies at numerous parliamentary commissions and working groups on a wide range of topics and in court cases as an expert witness. Yanick Labrie holds a master’s degree in economics from the Université de Montréal.… Read more -
Hani Wannamaker
Hani Wannamaker has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics & Finance from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). She was a summer 2023 intern in the Institute’s Department of Fiscal Studies.