Quebec budget reforms pensions, university fees
Posted Mar 17, 2011 04:35:17 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
QUEBEC – Quebec’s provincial budget has introduced reforms today that will affect both students and seniors and the changes are sure to be controversial. Universities will receive a drastic boost in funding with a nearly 25 per cent increase in their operating revenues over six years.
Many of those improvements will be paid for by an even more drastic hike in tuition fees 75 per cent over five years, to almost $3,800. That would still leave Quebec with some of the lowest tuition rates in Canada, but it is sure to draw vigorous opposition from Quebec’s well-organized and vocal student lobby.
There are also significant pension changes: larger penalties for workers who retire under age 65, but more generous pensions and tax breaks for those who continue working past that age.
There is also, for the first time ever in Canada, a new private pension plan that would be run by financial institutions and offered to workers who don’t currently have company pensions. Quebec hopes that the rest of Canada will follow with a similar plan _ perhaps as early as next week’s federal budget.
The provincial government says it’s still on track to balance the books by 2013 _ but critics note that the $3.8 billion deficit is larger than forecast a year ago, and call this a buy-now-pay-later budget.
