Glossary
Public finance terms, explained simply. On the site's pages, a term with a dotted underline leads to its definition.
- Agglomeration and central city
- Some responsibilities (police, water, public transit…) are exercised for a whole agglomeration by its central city, on behalf of the related municipalities. Their spending appears mostly in the central city's financial report.
- Aggregate tax rate
- A municipality's property taxes and property-related charges, divided by taxable value, per $100 of assessment. The standardized rate uses standardized assessment, to compare municipalities with one another.
- Budgetary balance
- Revenue minus expenditure for the year: a surplus if positive, a deficit if negative. Under the Balanced Budget Act, deposits to the Generations Fund are also deducted.
- Consolidated expenditure
- Spending of the government's entire reporting entity: general fund, special funds, bodies, and the health and education networks, after eliminating transactions between them. This is the Public Accounts view.
- Constant dollars
- Amounts adjusted for inflation with Québec's consumer price index, to compare different years at equal purchasing power.
- Contingency fund
- A Conseil du trésor provision in the Expenditure Budget, redistributed to departments during the year for unforeseen spending.
- Debt service
- Amount paid during the year on the debt, mostly interest. It does not include repayment of principal.
- Effective rate
- Total taxes and contributions paid, divided by income.
- Equalization
- A federal program that pays provinces whose capacity to raise revenue is below average, so they can provide comparable public services. Québec receives it.
- Federal transfers
- Money the federal government pays to the provinces: equalization, the Canada Health Transfer, the Canada Social Transfer and other programs.
- Fiscal year
- The Québec government's accounting year, from 1 April to 31 March. Fiscal year 2025-2026 runs from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.
- General fund
- The government's main fund: it receives most taxes and pays departmental spending voted by the National Assembly. It excludes bodies, special funds and the health and education networks.
- Gross domestic product (GDP)
- The value of everything produced in Québec in a year. The net debt to GDP ratio measures the weight of the debt relative to the size of the economy.
- Information resources
- The government's IT and digital projects: systems, software and technology infrastructure.
- Marginal rate
- The share of an extra dollar of income that goes to taxes and contributions.
- Net debt
- Government liabilities minus its financial assets (investments, loans, amounts receivable). It is the debt left once assets that could repay it are deducted.
- Portfolio
- All spending under one minister: their department and the bodies reporting to it.
- Public Accounts
- The government's audited annual financial statements, published in the fall for the fiscal year ended the previous 31 March.
- Québec abatement
- A 16.5% reduction in basic federal tax for Québec residents: Québec itself funds programs that the federal government funds in other provinces.
- Québec Infrastructure Plan (QIP)
- The government's planned ten-year investments in roads, hospitals, schools and its other infrastructure, updated with each budget.
- Regional county municipality (RCM)
- A grouping of the municipalities of a territory, responsible in particular for land use planning and property assessment. Some cities belong to no RCM (Laval, Lévis and Gatineau, among others).
- School tax
- A property tax collected by school service centres, at a single rate for all of Québec set each year, on the standardized value above $25,000.
- Standardized assessment
- The value on the assessment roll, multiplied by a published factor to bring it to market value at a common date. It allows rolls of different ages to be compared; school tax is calculated on it.