With the Parti Québécois (PQ) having only just been elected, the Institute for Socio-Economic Research and Information (IRIS) is urging it to “invest heavily” in prevention and primary care. The research institute has calculated that, during the election campaign, the PQ promised to allocate an additional $500 million a year to these sectors. IRIS believes that 13 times that amount – $6.8 billion a year – should instead be invested. The left-wing research institute asserts, however, that these “investments could be offset by significant savings in secondary and tertiary care”. The net cost of these investments is therefore estimated at $1.5 billion per year. “We must invest heavily now in order to substantially improve access to services, the health of the population and, ultimately, generate savings,” explains Anne Plourde, a researcher at IRIS and author of the study, in an interview with The Canadian Press. Health care is the largest budget item in Quebec, costing more than $60 billion for 2024–2025. Can health-care spending be increased even further? According to Anne Plourde, the province is “investing poorly in health care,” and this is why we are not seeing improved access for the population. “We have known for decades that our system is far too focused on hospitals, on specialized and sub-specialized second- and third-line services, which are very costly. That is where the vast majority of health-care investment goes, and it is not where investment is most effective,” explains the researcher. “Generally speaking, it is considered that primary care should meet 80 per cent of the population’s needs. At present, three-quarters of the funds invested in health and social services are channeled into secondary and tertiary care,” she adds. IRIS also proposes to “triple the number of health-care staff in CLSCs” and to transfer “a significant proportion” of the approximately 200,000 health-care workers currently in the private sector to the public sector. The PQ has also promised to replace Santé Québec with an agency. Although critical of the creation of Santé Québec, IRIS states that this is not currently a priority issue. “It won’t make much difference to access to services for the public,” says Anne Plourde. The IRIS study indicates that “there is currently no official data on the total amounts or the proportion of expenditure invested in frontline care in Quebec, nor on the number or proportion of staff in the network working on the front line”. This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 14, 2026.
