The following is CJAD 800's tally of what the four major parties have promised you ahead of the Oct. 1 election. Check back for updates — and scroll down below for an issue-by-issue breakdown of the parties' signature promises.
(Updated through Sept. 28)
Liberals
- Families with children under the age of 18 will get an extra $150 to $300 — per child, per year and tax-free — depending on family income.
- 2,000 more subsidized daycare spots to be opened in educational institutions and companies.
- Expand dental coverage for kids under 16, low-income seniors.
- Have two early-childhood educators, not just one, to be added for pre-schools, right up to grade 1.
- Free daycare for 4-year-olds.
- Intensive English instruction for francophone kids in grades 5 and 6.
- Invest another $400 million in education, for things like school renovations, more time in gym class and extra computer classes.
- Boost the starting salaries of teachers to $53,134 per year — for most, that would mean an increase of over $8,000.
- Ensure 90 per cent of Quebecers have a family doctor by 2022.
- Boost home-care services in the province with a new $200 million injection.
- Hire more nurses' aides.
- Build a long-discussed third route across the St. Lawrence river to connect Quebec City and Lévis.
- Strengthen and extend the public transport network in Quebec City.
- Invest an additional $200 million to extend high speed internet and cell phone coverage in remote areas.
- Name a minister of the regions whose mandate would include the development of high-performing digital infrastructure.
- Allow seniors to defer the payment of their retirement pensions if they choose to work past retirement age.
- Limit agricultural land purchases by investment funds to 100 hectares a year.
- Create 1,500 new long term care places in CHSLDs over 4 years.
- Hospital parking fees: free parking for two hours for someone visiting a relative in the hospital, and the costs limited to $7 per day for any time beyond that.
- $2,400 in tax credits for families that have to adapt their homes to accommodate an elderly, live-in relative.
- An increase in psychological support and respite centres.
- Give the regions $15 million per year to help integrate new immigrant workers
- Free public transit for students and seniors — at a cost of around $200 million per year.
- Extend the REM light-rail network into Mirabel.
- $2.4 billion in new spending — and balanced budgets.
- Committing to tax fairness for online businesses.
- Free part-time technical training programs at CEGEPs.
- An extra $1,000 credit for those who buy electric cars.
- $350 million — at least — to expand Montreal's Palais des Congres.
- Have plastic straws banned in bars and restaurants, and invest in sorting centres to improve recycling.
- $80M over the next four years for Artificial Intelligence research.
- Cutting red tape for entrepreneurs in the sharing economy.
- 2000 new subsidized daycare spaces in workplaces, CEGEPs and universities.
- Make part-time vocational training free for students in activity sectors that meet needs identified by regions.
- Invest an additional $10M per year in French-language training in the workplace.
Coalition Avenir Québec
- Scrap CHSLDs — long-term care residences — and replace them with more modern seniors' homes with better amenities over 20 years. Cost: $1 billion.
- Harmonize school taxes.
- An additional $1,200 per child in family allowances for each child after the first one.
- Downsize the province's public service — eliminate 25,000 to 30,000 positions through retirements, and 'readjust' about 200,000 others, for a saving of $1.2 billion.
- Fund four additional facilities in the Quebec Entrepreneurship Schools network.
- Introduce an entrepreneurship course for Sec. V (Grade 11) students.
- Cover $250 of the cost of eyeglasses and other eye-care products for children and teens.
- $400M over 4 years to ensure high-speed Internet access across '100% of Quebec's territory'.
- Get all Quebecers a family doctor, and make sure Quebecers can consult them or a specialized nurse-practitioner within a maximum of 36 hours.
- Complete review of the remuneration of family physicians in an effort to promote better patient care.
- Double the tax credit for caregivers
- Government agencies would be required to purchase at least some of their food supplies locally to assist Quebec food and vegetable growers.
- Enhance the current electricity rebate with a view toward doubling the province's greenhouse acreage.
- Reducing the number of immigrants coming into Quebec by 20 per cent, starting in 2019 — though leader François Legault says there would be no splitting of families.
- Elderly immigrants would be exempt from French test.
- New immigrants would have three years to pass a French test.
- $30 million for school textbooks and outings, and $5 million for school libraries.
- $800 million over four years to improve home care services for seniors.
- Pay for the first cycle of in vitro fertilization, as of 2020.
- New learning-difficulty screening system for children.
- Family doctor for every child.
- $6 billion over five years to renovate and expand Quebec schools.
- Make consenting to medically-assisted dying easier for those patients in the early stages of Alzheimer's.
- Expand Highway 30 to three lanes, each way, on the south shore between Hwys. 10 and 20.
- Cannabis: have legal age for consumption and purchase raised to 21; no sales near schools.
- Put in place a 'silver alert' when a senior with cognitive issues goes missing.
Parti Québécois
- Pass new, more stringent update to Bill 101, known as Bill 202 — in the first 101 days of a PQ government.
- School lunch service for elementary schools.
- Compel schools to order common school supplies in bulk, so parents won't have to shop, and spend, for them.
- 'Tinder' for carpoolers — an app which would match drivers with people looking for rides.
- Kill off the REM light rail network in favor of a system of tramways and buses that would serve the entire island of Montreal.
- Reform the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan to allow parents more flexibility, such as allowing them to get 20 working days off, to be used at any time until the child goes to kindergarten.
- Add two weeks of paternity leave to the current five.
- Allow adoptive parents the same leave as biological ones.
- Pay employers $400 for every employee that works from home, two days a week.
- Create a consumer protection bureau to get rid of monopolies and set floor prices for airline tickets to prevent big carriers from temporarily dropping prices to stifle new competition.
- Raise minimum wage gradually to $15/hour.
- Encourage hunting and fishing by making licences cheaper
- $200 million for Quebec's CHSLD network — part of that money would go toward making sure all seniors homes are fully air-conditioned by next summer.
- Introduce a senior solidarity tax credit.
- Increase subsidies for farmers looking to buy farmland.
- Force Quebec institutions like hospitals, CHSLDs to have 50 per cent of the food come from local growers.
- Restart the free in-vitro fertilization program which was cancelled by the Liberals in 2015.
- Create a separate consumer protection office that would look into gas industry price fixing (ultimately, that could mean lower prices at the pumps).
- Pass legislation to assert Quebec's environmental independence: more electric car-charging stations.
- Institute a 'glutton tax' for CEOs who make 30 times what the average person working under them makes; go after those who put money in offshore tax havens.
- Set up fibre-optic connection throughout Quebec.
- Establish a 'Made in Quebec' label for Quebec-made products.
- Open up 21,000 new daycare spaces in a first mandate.
- Make daycare free for families who make less than $34,000. Charge $8.05 a day for first child, $4 a day for second child, free for third child, and beyond.
- $2.3 billion to renovate schools.
- Eliminate paperwork and bureacracy by launching what they're calling the Great Simplification that would make it easier for individuals and organizations that do business with the government.
- $30 million more for autism services; $100 million total for kids with disabilities.
- 60 percent discount on public transit, during off-peak hours.
Québec Solidaire
- Cut public transit fares in half — along with an investment of $7.6 billion in transit infrastructure.
- Make sign language an official language of the province.
- Free dental care for everyone.
- Free school from daycare to grad school.
- Legalize jiu-jitsu.
- Ban gas-powered cars entirely by 2050 — sales of gas-only cars would be banned by 2030.
- Negotiate new deal with medical specialists — which would see their salaries cut by 12 per cent.
- Would move quickly to protect 10 percent of marine areas and 20 percent of terrestrial areas in the province by 2020.
- End public financing of private schools within four years.
- Raise minimum wage to $15/hour by May 2019 — and $100 million over five years to help smaller businesses, farmers and community organizations adjust to the change.
- $2 billion to fix the province's aging schools, and to hire 2,100 new teachers, as a way of cutting class sizes and reducing the student-to-teacher ratio.
- 38 new metro stations — including Valerie Plante's pink line — over the next decade.
- $10 billion investment in transit infrastructure over the next four years.
- Compel the SAQ to charge less for locally-produced products.
- Create new agency to regulate intercity transport, as a way to ensure efficient, and inexpensive, intercity bus transport between far-flung towns.
- End any and all petroleum exploration projects.
- Would launch a guaranteed minimum income pilot project.
- Fight corruption by subjecting prospective UPAC commissioners and SQ bosses to a two-thirds ratification vote in the National Assembly.
- Open CLSCs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Boost the number of visible minorities in the civil service.
- Create a 'national anti-burnout strategy' that would, among other things, guarantee workers four weeks per year of vacation time.
- Give more autonomy to dental hygienists.