The Budget Process: What Is It, Exactly?

Every year, Quebec’s Minister of Finance tables a budget covering the upcoming fiscal year.

For 2025-2026, we’ll be joining Minister Eric Girard on March 25 for his big day. Later than usual, you might say? Yes, but understandable given all the uncertainty being imposed on us by the United States.

What is a budget?

At first glance, it’s an enormous stack of documents filled with columns and tables covering all of the Quebec government’s expenditures and revenues. In reality, it’s also a tool that sets the priorities and directions of the government in power for the coming year. It takes into account all possible spending for each ministry by allocating budget appropriations. These appropriations are subsequently debated in committee sessions during the study of budget estimates at the National Assembly, where opposition parties play their role as watchdogs over government action, shining a light on the government’s missteps and, more rarely, its achievements. Once this stage is complete, the government can begin incurring expenditures and generating revenues.

Pre-budget requests

You know the expression: the king is dead, long live the king. The same applies to a government budget. The budget is tabled, and work on the next one begins immediately. The entire year preceding the Minister of Finance’s budget tabling is filled with consultations, requests, briefs, and negotiations. The minister consults with colleagues who all have varying needs, both within their ministries and their ridings, but the public also has the right to have its say.

Any organization that wishes to do so can submit a pre-budget brief to the Ministry of Finance to highlight the needs of their sector, their business, or their organization. It is prudent for an organization to establish a year-long government relations plan with the budget as the end goal. This allows for reflection on possible positioning and for making recommendations to raise awareness among elected officials and civil servants.

The economic update

What is the difference between the budget and the economic update? The budget sets the financial parameters, directions, and priorities of the government in power for the full coming year. The economic update arrives at the midpoint of the current fiscal year. It serves to recalibrate. This update takes into account all disruptions to our economy. For example, the economic update during the pandemic was followed as closely as the initial budget tabling, given the new parameters that had to be considered. On its own, it practically served as a new budget, so significantly had the fiscal frameworks been affected by the pandemic, the closure of several sectors, and the substantial increase in government aid.

The key takeaway is that the fall economic statement aims to correct course and provide predictability on anticipated indicators. It is a far less momentous exercise and the chances for an organization to have a measure included are significantly lower than in a full budget.

The famous balanced budget

Do you remember Lucien Bouchard and his economic policies? Well, he is also the one who had the Balanced Budget Act passed in 1996. This law primarily requires the government to adopt a plan to return to a balanced budget within five years when it anticipates a deficit exceeding one billion dollars. This law has been amended in recent years. The PLQ added the question of the Generations Fund. The balanced budget is now calculated by subtracting certain revenues, such as Hydro-Quebec royalties, in order to reduce Quebec’s debt.

The Legault government also amended it to give itself more room to manoeuvre due to budgetary uncertainty in recent years, notably with the pandemic and now with the trade war with the United States. It had become too difficult to return to a balanced budget during a recession. Now, articles 5 and 8 provide that the government may anticipate a deficit if a disaster has consequences for our economy, if economic conditions deteriorate, if the federal government forces provinces to make additional transfers making balance impossible, or if economic recovery does not materialize after a troubled period or recession.

How to see things more clearly?

Our team will be present at the budget lockup to follow the fine details of the announced measures, including a significant deficit projected for the coming year, according to statements made by the Minister of Finance.

Participants do not have access to their communications devices and cannot leave the room. It is a kind of one-on-one with the budget documents, allowing interested parties to read the budget before it is tabled and read in the late afternoon before parliamentarians.

Throughout the day, we prepare executive summaries by sector of activity that interest us and, once the lockup is lifted, we share our complete briefing with our collaborators. We can help you navigate the new financial parameters that the government will be setting and, above all, spare you from having to read thousands of pages of accounting documents.

But our work does not stop there. Throughout the year, we work in concert with you to establish your priorities, define strategies, and coordinate various actions. Catapulte’s strength lies above all in its team, which has developed expertise in budgetary processes. We are here to support you according to your reality.

Did you know?

According to the National Assembly encyclopedia, the word « budget » comes from the old French word « bougette, » meaning a satchel or small bag.

Budget glossary

Want to better understand the parliamentary jargon surrounding the tabling of a budget? Here are a few terms.

QIP: The Quebec Infrastructure Plan (QIP) is a 10-year planning tool for public infrastructure investments.

Balanced budget: The government achieves a balanced budget when the budget balance is zero or shows a surplus.

Budget speech: Speech delivered by the Minister of Finance outlining the financial situation of the state, the projected revenues and expenditures for the upcoming fiscal year, and the tax measures contemplated by the government.

Budget speech debate: Annual debate lasting 25 hours, including the speech itself, the comments of the financial critic from each parliamentary opposition group, and the interventions of other parliamentarians.

Budget appropriations: Sums of money made available to the executive branch for a specific purpose. Used primarily in the expression « budget appropriations. »

Provisional appropriations: Appropriations submitted for approval by the Assembly before the start of a new fiscal year to ensure the functioning of the state while awaiting the adoption of the « annual expenditure budget. »

Study of estimates: Stage in the budgetary process that involves examining each element of the expenditure budget.

Deficit: The excess of projected charges or expenditures over the revenues shown in a public administration’s budget.

Public debt: The total of obligations resulting from financial commitments entered into by the government; the total of debts that must be settled with public funds.

GDP: GDP corresponds to the value of total production of goods and services, without double counting, within the geographic limits of a territory, regardless of whether the factors of production are foreign-owned or not, over the course of the year.

Austerity: A policy of austerity or fiscal restraint is an economic policy aimed at controlling or reducing public expenditures in order to reduce the deficit.

System costs: System costs include, among other things, salary increases, salary increments, equipment purchases, and building insurance, for example.

Sources: Encyclopedia of Quebec Parliamentarism and OQLF