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QUÉBEC – Quebec Finance Minister Eric Girard tabled an economic update on Thursday with $2.1 billion in new spending over five years amid what he described as a stronger-than-expected recovery from last year’s economic slowdown.

Girard painted a positive picture of the province’s finances despite a projected $11-billion deficit that remains unchanged from March’s budget.

“Quebec is progressing,” he told reporters. “The return of inflation to a low and predictable level, combined with the reduction in interest rates, favours economic recovery in Quebec in 2024 and 2025.”

He said real GDP growth is expected to be 1.2 per cent in 2024, compared with the 0.6 per cent that was expected. However, spending is also up, with Girard pointing to expenses related to record-breaking flooding this summer and increased health and social services costs.

The new spending he announced includes more than $250 million for the forestry sector and $1.2 billion for community development, including $880 million for public transit. 

The government is also setting aside $250 million to assist flood victims and rebuild infrastructure following post-Tropical Storm Debby, and $208 million to promote access to housing.

Girard told reporters the government is still reviewing its spending as it moves toward its goal of balancing the budget by the 2029-30 fiscal year, with more details to be provided in next year’s budget. 

As part of the review, the government decided that Quebecers between the ages of 60 and 64 will no longer be eligible for a tax credit that was introduced in 2012 to encourage older workers to stay in the workforce. Girard said Thursday the average age of retirement in Quebec has risen to 64.7 years in 2023 from just over 61 years in 2011.

“For people between the ages of 60 and 64 years old, the historic gap that existed with Ontario has practically disappeared,” he said. Nearly 200,000 60- to 64-year-olds are expected to lose out on an average of about $1,000 per year due to the changing eligibility.

The government is also clawing back the amount of the credit for higher earners who are 65 and over, beginning at $56,500 in net revenue. Those who make over $81,500 will get no tax credit.

These changes are expected to save the government about $200 million per year, said Girard, adding that “people expect us to review measures and eliminate those that are no longer justified.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2024.

— With files from Morgan Lowrie in Montreal

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

OTTAWA – A Liberal MP says his committee colleagues are wasting time by launching a third inquiry into the former employment minister instead of focusing on important legislation for Indigenous Peoples.

Jaime Battiste, who is Mi’kmaq, said there has been an “attack” on fellow Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault, who left his position as employment minister on Wednesday after allegations of shifting claims of Indigenous identity and questions around his past business dealings.

Boissonnault has been the subject of two parliamentary probes, and Battiste said a third one by the Indigenous and northern affairs committee is “a waste of time, and it seems to be the Conservatives’ way of ensuring that nothing gets done in the House of Commons.”

The Conservatives, NDP and Bloc Québécois all supported pushing ahead with the third study, even after Boissonnault left cabinet. Though Liberal MPs did not object to the motion Thursday, Battiste said the committee’s time would be better spent studying legislation on important issues such as First Nations policing, a modern treaty commissioner and clean water for First Nations.

“It’s very much my fear and frustration that politics is now becoming more important at the Indigenous and northern affairs committee than actually Indigenous Peoples that we’re there every day to try to make life better for,” he said.

Boissonnault came under intense scrutiny after the National Post reported that a company he previously co-owned described itself as wholly Indigenous-owned in order to apply for government contracts set aside for Indigenous businesses.

He has been described as Indigenous multiple times in communications from the Liberal party, and in 2018 referred to himself as “non-status adopted Cree” — a statement he has repeated on other occasions. He also said his great-grandmother was a “full-blooded Cree woman.”

He has since clarified that his adoptive mother and brother are Métis, and he apologized for his shifting claims last Friday. 

The House ethics committee has separately investigated Boissonnault’s past business dealings after media reports alleged he remained involved in the company he co-founded after he was re-elected in 2021. 

Opposition MPs on the Indigenous and northern affairs committee passed a motion on Tuesday — a day before Boissonnault left cabinet — for the employment minister to appear as a witness to discuss his claims to Indigenous identity.

But because Boissonnault is no longer in cabinet, the Liberal chair of the committee ruled Thursday that newly minted Employment Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor is technically the person the motion called to testify.

“I figured this might happen,” said Conservative MP and committee member Jamie Schmale.

“If there are games to be played here and we have Minister Petitpas Taylor attend, I don’t think that goes to the spirit of the House order. I don’t think it would be very responsible to go against that … It’s Randy Boissonault that the House determined it needs and is ordered to appear along with several other witnesses. That’s who we expect to be in that seat.”

A new motion from the Conservatives calls directly for Boissonnault to appear at the committee. 

One of the key concerns raised about Boissonnault in recent weeks is related to the government’s Indigenous business procurement strategy.

A directory provides the federal government with names of businesses it could consider using to meet its Indigenous procurement target, which states a minimum five per cent of the total value of government contracts should be held by Indigenous-owned businesses. 

Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu told a House of Commons committee on Tuesday that the company Boissonnault founded was not listed on that directory.

Battiste suggested the committee will now be in a position of determining who is eligible for Indigenous programming and determining who is Indigenous, and as a First Nations person he does not agree with that. 

“I have a lot of concern because no First Nations, Métis or Inuit in this country are asking committees — who are filled with non-Indigenous Peoples — to determine our identity, who we are.”

Schmale, NDP MP Lori Idlout and Bloc MP Sebastian Lemire, who are all members of the committee, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

MONTREAL – Municipal officials are considering an end to water fluoridation on the Island of Montreal in a move spurred by a petition from a resident who claims he has the support of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A council representing Montreal and the suburban municipalities on the island are scheduled to vote Thursday evening on whether the six West Island suburbs that treat their water with fluoride should stop the practice.

The city’s water department has recommended that fluoridation be stopped, in part due to cost, though public health officials support fluoridation as an effective way to reduce tooth decay.

But mayors of the affected suburbs say they only learned of the city’s plan in September, years after the department began studying the issue. They say residents haven’t been consulted and the process is undemocratic. 

In a report dated March 2024, the water department says it began considering the use of fluoride in the water supply after receiving a “citizen petition” in 2020. That petition was launched by resident Ray Coelho, who said in a recent Facebook post that his campaign is supported by Kennedy.

“I’ve spoken to RFK on a few occasions, he congratulated me on ending fluoridation in Montreal,” he wrote earlier this month. The Canadian Press was unable to reach Coelho for comment. 

Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic who has been tapped by United States president-elect Donald Trump to be his health secretary, claims that fluoride is an “industrial waste” linked to a range of health problems, and has said the Trump administration will remove the mineral from the U.S. public water supply.

Coelho has an active social media presence, and he posts often about the Israel-Hamas war, calling Israel a “genocidal terrorist state.” He ran in the 2019 federal election for the now-defunct Canadian Nationalist Party, a far-right white nationalist party that was deregistered by Elections Canada in 2022. He told the Montreal Gazette he is no longer associated with the party. 

“I really question what type of due diligence Montreal does when they receive petitions,” said Heidi Ektvedt, mayor of Baie d’Urfé, one of the six affected suburbs. She said Coelho appears to be “inspired by conspiracy theories,” and said many of the residents in her suburb are “furious” about the city’s plan. “What’s going on in the United States should not creep into decision-making in our country,” she said. 

Georges Bourelle, mayor of Beaconsfield, called Coelho a “far-right extremist,” and said he doesn’t put “a lot of credibility on petitions.” None of the affected communities, including Beaconsfield, has ever requested that fluoride be removed from its water, he said.

Only two of Montreal’s six water treatment plants use fluoride. Those two plants serve five per cent of the island’s population in six suburbs in Montreal’s West Island. There is only one other municipality in Quebec that puts fluoride in its water. 

In its report, the water department says it costs about $100,000 a year to fluoridate the water at the two treatment plants. The city also refers to problems with the supply of fluoridation products in recent years that have led to shutdowns at the two plants, health concerns for workers handling the chemicals, and a desire to offer a uniform water supply to residents across the island. 

The report acknowledges that major health organizations, including the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Health Canada, support putting fluoride in drinking water. Montreal’s regional public health directorate told the department in November 2023 it favours fluoridation. But the report says that health considerations are “beyond the scope of expertise of the water department.” 

Bourelle and Ektvedt said they were only told about the city’s plan to stop putting fluoride in their communities’ water during a September meeting — four years after the water department received Coelho’s petition. Ektvedt said she was “speechless” when she learned of the recommendation. 

“It is an undemocratic decision made by the City of Montreal,” Bourelle said. “It shows a complete lack of respect of the population affected.” 

He said the affected suburbs have only a small percentage of the voting power on the council, calling the process “a flagrant example of abuse of power by the majority at the agglomeration council.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2024. 

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