Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of the Economy, Innovation and Energy (Archive photo)
State corporations will have to release the equivalent of $1 billion over four years in spending reductions in order to contribute to returning to budget balance. The request targets Hydro-Québec, Loto-Québec, the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ), the Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC) and Investissement Québec.
They will have to make savings from the 2025-2026 financial year. Annual savings are expected to reach $400 million in 2028-29.
The budgetary effort comes at a time when Hydro-Québec has set itself the objective of investing nearly 100 billion dollars to increase network capacity by 2035, according to its action plan unveiled in November. Added to this are investments of $45 to $50 billion to improve network reliability.
Hydro-Québec wants to reduce the number of outages by 35% within 7 to 10 years, at a time when unfavorable weather conditions have led to an increase in the number of outages.
The budgetary exercise is very commendable in a context where Quebec must return to budget balance, believes Mr. Fitzgibbon. I think that Mr. Girard, rightly, wanted to have an approach to show the rating agencies that we had a critical path to reducing deficits.
The Legault government has not defined the changes that Hydro-Québec would be able to provide. Mr. Fitzgibbon mentioned administrative services as a possible avenue, but added that he does not yet have the details.
It will be up to Hydro-Québec to determine the areas where it can reduce its expenses, said Mr. Girard. The answer will come from Hydro-Québec when we sit down with [its representatives] to discuss. We want efforts, then they will tell us where they can make these efforts.
He recalled that Hydro-Québec would have time to analyze these avenues since no changes are planned for this year. We have not included 2024-2025 revenues because there will be discussions with state corporations and their boards of directors.