MONTREAL (Reuters) – Canada’s Quebec will post a record C$14.9 billion ($11 billion)deficit during fiscal 2020-2021, as the province spent more to fight the coronavirus pandemic and while facing a 9% decrease in own-source revenues, Finance Minister Eric Girard said on Friday.
Quebec, the country’s hardest hit province by the pandemic, spent more than C$6.6 billion on financial support to mitigate the impact of coronavirus and expects an estimated decrease of C$8.5 billion in own-source revenues during fiscal 2020-2021.
The fiscal year runs from April to March.
Quebec’s real GDP is projected to contract by 6.5% in calendar 2020, compared with the March budget, which banked on growth of 2%.
(Reporting By Allison Lampert; Editing by Denny Thomas and Chizu Nomiyama)
