CAQ says credit downgrade had ‘no impact’

Opposition leaders in Quebec City are calling for the government to respond to the S&P downgrading of Quebec’s credit rating.

Whatever the opposition parties may say, Standard & Poor’s decision last week to lower Quebec’s credit rating has had no impact, Premier François Legault and Finance Minister Eric Girard said on Tuesday.

They explained that the financial markets reacted well to Quebec’s bond issue in the morning.

“There is absolutely no impact,” Girard told journalists at the National Assembly. “As for the future, I can’t predict that,” he added.

For the past week, the opposition parties have been accusing the Legault government of having mismanaged public finances, causing Quebec to go into recession for the first time in 30 years.

Legault said that he was fully responsible for the choices made, such as increasing health and education budgets and cutting taxes for the middle class.

A downgrade could lead to higher interest rates on the government’s debt.

“They’re trying to tell us that everything is normal and that there’s no problem with what’s just happened. I’m sorry, this is serious, and it has consequences for future governments,” Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said on Tuesday.

He said he feared that other rating agencies would follow S&P’s lead.

“I’m asking the government to stop being negligent and at least go and plead our case before it’s too late, because all this is going to cost us hundreds of millions,” St-Pierre Plamondon added.

Girard said he would be holding virtual meetings with the rating agencies as usual in May. He said that the government’s plan to return to a balanced budget within five years was “credible.”

A Canadiens game that didn’t go down well

When news of the downgrade broke last Wednesday, the government was announcing $46 million for the third Quebec-Lévis road link, and Legault was on his way to the Bell Centre to attend a Canadiens game.

This shows the “recklessness” of the CAQ government, which seems to be taking the situation lightly, said St-Pierre Plamondon.

“The reaction, both to the third link and to the Canadiens game, tells us that the government, in its head, is either already retired or already on holiday,” he said.

“He should have saved himself a little embarrassment ... on the night his government was stripped of power. I would have listened to the match on television, turned down the volume and revised my budget, which is no good,” added Marc Tanguay, interim leader of the Liberal Party, at a news briefing.

Legault replied to a journalist who questioned him on the subject that he had wanted to “spend some time with (his) son.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French April 22, 2025.

Caroline Plante, The Canadian Press