QUEBEC - Highlights of the 2011-2012 Quebec budget tabled Thursday:
-- $3.8 billion deficit for 2011-12, worse than the $2.9 billion forecast a year ago but projection remains unchanged for a balanced budget in 2013-14.
-- Government expenditures, including program spending and debt service, to reach $69.1 billion.
-- Gross debt will reach $173.4 billion, or 54.7 per cent of Quebec's GDP, by the end of 2011-12.
-- A university tuition hike of nearly 75 per cent over five years, a $325-a-year increase that will still leave Quebec's tuition among the lowest in Canada, at $3,793, in 2016-17.
-- An $850 million funding boost for universities over six years, which will increase their operating revenues by 25 per cent.
-- Creation of new Pooled Registered Pension Plans, a potential model for a new Canada-wide system that will be managed by financial institutions and offered to workers at businesses that do not have private pensions.
-- A 0.9 per cent increase, over six years, in Quebec Pension Plan premiums.
-- Workers who retire after age 65 will receive a new tax credit of up to $1,504 while they work and an 8.4 per cent bonus in pension payments once they retire, up from the current 6 per cent bonus. Workers who retire under age 65, however, will be hit by a 7.2 per cent penalty in their pensions, up from the current 6 per cent.
-- A drastic hike in royalties from future shale-gas development, increasing the current rate that maxes out at 12.5 per cent of the value of a well, to a new rate as high as 35 per cent.
-- $1.6 billion for northern infrastructure and up to $500 million to fund private businesses in the region.
