The Quebec government is promising to help businesses affected by tariffs. Can it afford to? [Video]

The Quebec government has posted a historic budget deficit, is currently trying to scale back spending and is facing the threat of U.S. President Donald Trump imposing tariffs that would decimate the province’s economy. 

If the tariffs come, Premier François Legault has signalled that the province would step in with short-term loans to mitigate the impact of layoffs. 

But economists and experts say Quebec is in an unfavourable financial position at an inopportune moment. As the province weighs potentially costly measures to counteract tariff impacts, they warn that any relief measures would have to be extremely targeted or they would risk putting the province’s books into an even more dire state. 

Preetika Joshi, an assistant professor of accounting at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management, said in an interview that the Quebec government has funds set aside for emergencies — exactly like the kind posed by Trump’s tariffs. But she said the province’s deficit spending might mean the government needs to be more surgical with …