In opposition, François Legault and the CAQ were very fond of "eating from the doctor".
In front of them stood (from 2014 to 2018) the liberal "medicalocracy", with Philippe Couillard, Yves Bolduc and Gaétan Barrette in the lead.
Less tax
In 2016, the CAQ spokesperson for Health, François Paradis, attacked the possibility for doctors to incorporate.
That is, to create "corporations", which enjoy much lower tax rates than individuals. Not to mention deductions for operating costs.
Except that the possibility for doctors to create a company is like a privilege. Unlike other incorporated professionals, doctors have only one client who pays them, the state.
Yes, they have "company" expenses, but their risk is not comparable to that of other professionals and entrepreneurs.
2007
Doctors won the right to incorporate in 2007 under the Liberals, when Philippe Couillard was Minister of Health. (The process had been launched before, the Liberals replied; under the PQ, of which Minister Legault was a part!)
In the years following 2007, doctors got the big pay raises that we know of. Many of them have therefore won on all counts: more income, less tax.
Also, on March 6, 2016, an "electroshock" was needed, hammered the caquiste Paradis. In a press briefing in front of the Revenu Québec building, he urged the government to "gradually put an end to the incorporation of doctors".
The sums collected (between $150 and $300 million, it read) should be devoted to "home care services". At the time, the CAQ was indignant: more than 16,500 people were waiting for "a first home care service".
2018
In 2018, however, disincorporating doctors was not on the CAQ's official list of promises. François Legault had, however, undertaken to review the method of remuneration and to seek a billion dollars in the pocket of the docs.
Ending the incorporation could have helped! The deputy of Quebec solidaire Vincent Marissal, yesterday, reported that according to the Institute for socio-economic research and information (IRIS), which devoted a study to it recently, the cost for the State would today be some $250 million. .
Yesterday, Christian Dubé's answers to Marissal, on this question, were most evasive, even soothing. Like the agreement he concluded in 2019 with medical specialists, when he was president of the Treasury Board.
Agreement about which the two parties have never agreed on the meaning to give it!
Except for the fact that it created the Institute for the relevance of medical acts (IPAM), whose task was to identify some $450 million in savings per year. However, in the first year, IPAM will only deliver a reduction of $6 million out of some $70 million ultimately planned.
Disincorporating doctors could help, therefore, in the current process of "refounding" the health system. Although, of course, neighboring provinces, which gave the same gift to the docs, can then become more attractive.
“Do you have any information for our columnist? Write to antoine.robitaille@quebecormedia.com »
