Actuality¹⁴⁹

Un budget «ça va bien aller» pour un Québec endetté

Source : Les Affaires, March 25, 2025

Budget Québec 2025: a sprinkling of measures to help SMEs. Finance Minister Eric Girard's 2025-2026 budget contains a few measures to help Quebec SMEs withstand the consequences of the trade war with the United States, but industry stakeholders were expecting more.

Quebec starts from scratch to stimulate innovation. Quebec is wiping the slate clean on its innovation tax assistance scheme, in a bid to counter the drop in corporate spending on research and development. Finance Minister Eric Girard is abolishing eight of the nine tax measures to support innovation to create a single, simplified and enhanced $271 million (M) tax incentive.

Legault doit se défendre face à des entrepreneurs québécois

Source : La Presse, March 30, 2025

One of Premier François Legault's favorite topics, temporary immigration, caught up with him as far away as Germany, where he is on an economic mission. Two Quebec entrepreneurs called on him to remind him of the importance of immigrants for their businesses.

“Right now, we're having a bit of trouble making the decision to invest. Not at all because of the tariffs. It's because about half of our employees who operate our plant are temporary foreign workers, and right now, we're going to have to get rid of them,” said Constructions Proco owner Jean-Denis Toupin.

Another entrepreneur, Marie-Jeanne Bonneau, went up to François Legault after his speech to deliver essentially the same message as Jean-Denis Toupin. “Don't take my world away from me. We have to solve the problem. I have temporary foreign workers. They're machinists, they're welders. This year, I'll have to return some,” the assistant manager and co-owner of Industries Dodec told the Prime Minister.

Sitôt adoptée, la loi Stablex est contestée devant les tribunaux

Source : La Presse, March 28, 2025

The Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM) and the Ville de Blainville are asking the Superior Court to suspend the application of the law allowing the American company Stablex to build a new landfill cell for hazardous residual materials in the heart of a natural environment owned by Blainville, “until such time as its legality has been validated”.

A special session began late Thursday, and deputies debated throughout the night. It was adopted on Friday morning.

For its part, the CMM will argue that article 11 of the law creates a complete and unprecedented immunity, which would allow Stablex to act as it pleases until April 15, while article 7 of the law - an unusual occurrence in Quebec law - renders inapplicable all the rules of municipal authorities in matters of urban planning, development and land use.

Monde du travail à l’ère de l’IA: voici à quoi le cadre législatif devrait ressembler

Source : Les Affaires, March 28, 2025

Quebec could well become a more prominent player on the international artificial intelligence (AI) scene. But to do so, it must adopt a new legislative framework to avoid the excesses of the “digital transformation of the workplace”, according to the Ordre des conseillers en ressources humaines agréés (CRHA), which adds that the State must act now.

It points out that skills development is crucial in such a transition, not only to use technology to its full potential, but also to “limit deskilling and deprofessionalization.”

Perhaps these reflections could even serve as a springboard for a modernization of the Act to Promote Workforce Skills Development and Recognition, commonly known as the 1% Law, argues Manon Poirier.

According to the Ordre des CRHA, the right to disconnect should also be on Quebec's radar, as should clarifying the status of on-demand workers, especially if they only work for a single technological platform.work and skills development

Street poll: For Montrealers, this federal election isn’t just about Trump

Source : The Gazette, March 27, 2025

After spending some time Thursday afternoon on St-Viateur St. in the hip, beating heart of Mile End talking to folks about the upcoming federal election, a few themes came to the fore. One is the most obvious: Going into this crucial election, people are very concerned with how the next Canadian government will deal with the threats of tariffs and possible annexation coming from U.S. President Donald Trump.

But Folks are just as concerned with the economy as they are with Trump. In particular, they’re worried about home ownership; everyone I spoke with was in their mid-20s to 30s, so this spoke to their generation’s very real concerns about the huge inflation of house prices in recent years.