CCI Response to the 2023 Quebec Budget

Today, the Quebec government delivered their 2023 budget. On behalf of the province’s tech sector and CCI’s members, CCI Director of Policy and Research Laurent Carbonneau, issued the following response:

“In today’s budget we saw Quebec Finance Minister Eric Girard deliver a budget which acts as a down-payment on future economic productivity. The government can only achieve long-term prosperity by supporting domestic economic growth, and we saw encouraging steps on access to skilled talent, and support for strategic sectors like CleanTech, Cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.

“Access to skilled talent is the most important issue for many growing technology companies. We were pleased to see that Minister Girard invested $510 million to offer more support to Quebec’s domestic innovators who rely on immigration to recruit talent. CCI’s members have been calling for increased funding for Francisation Quebec and to support the private sector in this regard, and we are pleased to see the government heard our calls.

“However, we were disappointed that the government did not take steps to ensure that tax credits for digital media and video game production were not more carefully scoped to benefit domestic Quebec companies first and foremost. A recent Sherbrooke University study shows that the overwhelming majority of Quebec’s digital media tax credits benefit large foreign multinationals, which does little to strengthen the Quebec economy.

“This is the first budget delivered in a new mandate for the Legault government. Overall we hope that the government will continue to listen to the concerns of innovators, and follow through on strategies that emphasize commercialization, digitization, and economic growth in the 21st century innovation economy.”

Media Contact:
James McLeod
jmcleod@canadianinnovators.org