Electoral Platform Of The Conservative Party Of Quebec (PCQ)

1. The $47B five-year spending reduction plan the cornerstone of the platform

Announced on August 13, 2026 by Éric Duhaime and his spokesperson for economy and public finances, Adrien Pouliot, this plan is meant to fund the promised tax cuts and achieve a balanced budget within a first mandate. The party maintains it would have no impact on public services. Per the party’s official press release (August 13, 2026), it breaks down into three pillars:

Pillar 1 — Reducing subsidies to businesses: $20B over 5 years

Significant reduction of direct subsidies and tax credits to businesses.
Elimination of the Fonds du développement économique (Economic Development Fund).
Strict refocusing of Investissement Québec on its original mandate: lender of last resort where the private sector does not respond.

Pillar 2 — Rigorous spending control: $23.5B over 5 years

Permanent hiring freeze in the public service, with a gradual 5.6% annual workforce reduction, mainly through attrition (not replacing retirements).
Target: 20,000 civil service positions eliminated.
Review of all government programs by the ministry renamed « Conseil du trésor et de l’efficacité gouvernementale » (Treasury Board and Government Efficiency), including elimination of the Fonds vert (Green Fund / FECC).
No new program could be adopted without an equivalent offsetting saving being identified.
Adoption of a law capping spending growth at inflation plus population growth, with additional effort on non-salary spending until reaching “zero deficit.”

Pillar 3 — Digital modernization of the state: $3.5B over 5 years

Major acceleration of the digitization of the state, leveraging artificial intelligence and the recommendations of the Gallant Commission (see box below).
No further costed detail available to date Duhaime indicated a dedicated campaign day would be devoted to specific IT-related announcements.

The Gallant Commission and the SAAQclic fiasco, the PCQ's reference for digitization

The Gallant Commission is a public inquiry established by decree on March 24, 2025 and chaired by municipal court judge Denis Gallant, tasked with examining the management of the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec’s (SAAQ) IT modernization project (the CASA program, publicly known as SAAQclic). Public hearings were held between April and June 2025 in Montreal and Quebec City; the final 586-page report was tabled on February 16, 2026.

The fiasco in brief: an initial budget of $683M ballooned to an estimated final cost of $1.1B; the chaotic February 2023 launch caused slowdowns to work tools and even wrongful arrests and detentions due to SAAQ systems being inaccessible to police services. The report concludes that SAAQ management deliberately lied about the scale of cost overruns for several years, before the information reached the Premier’s office in 2023. Former Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital Technology Éric Caire is criticized for his lack of follow-up despite concerns raised as early as 2020.

Among the report’s 26 recommendations, those most relevant to state digitization:

Create a centralized entity specialized in the state’s digital transformation, to reduce reliance on private consultants and address the lack of top-tier government expertise the most frequently cited recommendation in media coverage.
Favor smaller IT projects with capped costs, rather than large-scale overhauls deemed “too vast, too ambitious.”
Strengthen the powers of the Autorité des marchés publics (AMP) and Quebec’s Lobbyist Commissioner.
Prevent public bodies from withholding evidence from one another (the improper use of solicitor-client privilege by SAAQ).
Clarify roles and responsibilities between a board of directors, an organization’s leadership, and the responsible minister.
Clean up IT contract management and improve transparency in accountability.

The PCQ invokes SAAQclic as a symbol of government IT waste and points to the Gallant recommendations notably the centralized entity and smaller, better-controlled projects to justify its $3.5B in anticipated digitization savings. This remains, at this stage, a rhetorical reference to a recent and broadly consensual report rather than a costed or detailed commitment.

Strategic angle: should the PCQ adopt the recommendation for a centralized digital transformation entity, this could create a new, single institutional entry point for major government IT contracts potentially more structured than the current dispersion across ministries. Duhaime’s announced “IT campaign day” is worth monitoring.

2. Taxation

Goal: the largest personal income tax and consumption tax cut in Quebec’s history (costed fiscal framework to be unveiled in the fall).
Businesses: a major reduction in the general corporate tax rate, aiming to place Quebec among the 8 to 12 most competitive jurisdictions in North America.
Withdrawal from the carbon market; a suspension of the gasoline tax is also being considered.

3. Health care

Elimination of Santé Québec to reduce bureaucracy.
Expanded access to private care: patients could turn to a private provider (using their health insurance card, at no additional cost) if the public system cannot treat them within a medically reasonable timeframe, or if a private provider can do so at a lower cost with equivalent quality.
The party states it would maintain universality; it promises increased home care services.

4. Construction and regulation

Easing of “over-regulation” deemed responsible for delays and cost overruns, notably to favor single-family homes over downtown densification.
An acknowledged, deliberate confrontation with the sector’s labour unions.

5. Family, nationalism, and autonomy

Financial assistance from the birth of a child (form yet to be specified); funding per child rather than only through licensed daycare services; no withdrawal of existing CPE (subsidized daycare) spaces.
Constitutional component: adoption of a Quebec constitution, non-consent to the 1982 constitutional patriation, reopening the question of Quebec citizenship, a national anthem, and a “Lévesque law” (systematic inclusion of the notwithstanding clause in all laws passed).
Decentralization: creation of 17 regional decision-making tables (immigration, economic development, natural resources, environment).
Reference model: Alberta premier Danielle Smith’s confrontational approach toward Ottawa.