ANALYSIS: 65 billion gone up in smoke — Quebec pays the price for its empty cribs

From 64% to 58%: The Silent Decline

Twenty years later, in 2025, baby boomers are between 63 and 78 years old. Almost all of them have left the workforce. Behind them, the generations born during the dramatic drop in birth rates of the 1960s have never been able to fill the void. People aged 20–64 now account for only 58% of the population.

Six percentage points. That sounds abstract. It’s 65 billion dollars. It’s equivalent to the entire annual budget of the Ministry of Health and Social Services. It’s enough to build 13 new CHUM hospitals. And yet, those six points have slipped away silently, year after year, like sand in an hourglass that no one is watching.

The rest of Canada is aging too—but not as quickly

The other Canadian provinces have not been spared. Their proportion of people aged 20–64 has also declined—falling to 61% by 2025. But the decline has been cushioned by two factors that Quebec has not experienced to the same extent: a baby boom spread out over a longer period and more sustained immigration, particularly in Ontario, which has been welcoming immigrants in greater numbers for 260 years.

Quebec had fewer babies and welcomed fewer people. The bill is coming due—and it’s a hefty one.

A Tricky Debate Between the Economy and Identity

Whenever the topic of an aging population comes up, someone brings up the magic word: immigration. As if opening the borders were enough to fill factories, hospitals, and classrooms. The reality is infinitely more complex. Immigration can slow down aging—it doesn’t stop it. And in Quebec, it runs up against a wall that economists measure but politicians prefer to ignore: the limits of economic and social acceptability.

Ontario has received substantial waves of immigration for decades. As a result, its working-age population has grown faster than Quebec’s, despite a similar birth rate. But Ontario doesn’t have the same language debate. Not the same identity crisis. Not the same weight of 400 years of French history in North America on its shoulders.

The Trap of the One-Size-Fits-All Solution

And yet, reducing the debate to “more immigration” or “less immigration” is like asking a heart patient whether they prefer salt or sugar. The issue lies elsewhere. It lies in productivity. In automation. In training. In the ability of an aging Quebec to produce more with fewer workers. We’ll come back to this.

From 10 workers leaving for every 8 joining… to parity

Pierre Fortin highlights a statistic that employers experience firsthand every day. In the mid-1990s, Quebec’s workforce had roughly 10 outgoing workers—those retiring—for every 8 new hires. Replacing workers went relatively smoothly. There was even a slight surplus of labor.

By 2025, this ratio has reversed. Employers are struggling to recruit. Wages are rising not because productivity is increasing, but because scarcity dictates the market. Restaurant owners are closing one day a week due to a lack of staff. Long-term care facilities are chronically understaffed. Quebec businesses aren’t short on customers—they’re short on workers.

The labor shortage is not a temporary crisis

When politicians talk about a labor shortage, they imply that it’s temporary. That it will pass. That the market will adjust. That’s not true. We’re not going through a recession—we’re experiencing a structural shift in Quebec’s demographics. The missing workers won’t be coming back. The babies not born in the 1970s won’t suddenly appear. And the baby boomers who are retiring won’t be going back to the factory.

What’s happening in Quebec isn’t a cycle. It’s a transformation.

Fewer Taxpayers, More Beneficiaries

Here’s the equation that should be keeping every Quebec finance minister awake at night: the population paying for public services is shrinking. The population using them is skyrocketing. A 75-year-old Quebecer costs the healthcare system, on average, four to five times more than a 35-year-old Quebecer. Multiply that ratio by the wave of baby boomers flooding emergency rooms, long-term care facilities, and home care services—and you get a picture of Quebec in 2025.

The missing 65 billion isn’t just an abstract number in an ISQ table. It’s money that could have funded better healthcare, better schools, and better roads. It’s money that could have allowed Quebec to avoid having to choose between paying its nurses and repairing its bridges.

The Paradox of Happy Aging

And yet—and this is perhaps the cruelest part—Quebec’s baby boomers are healthier than any previous generation. They live longer, travel more, and consume more. Individually, this is a victory. Collectively, it’s a financial abyss. Because living longer in good health also means living longer in poor health at the very end. And that end comes at an astronomical cost.

2031: Rock Bottom

Pierre Fortin, however, offers a glimmer of hope—and it’s worth reading carefully. According to the most recent baseline projection from the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ), the share of the population aged 20–64 will continue to decline—from 58% in 2025 to 55% in 2031. That’s six more years of decline. Then it hits rock bottom.

Starting in 2031, the aging process will essentially be complete. The ISQ forecasts that over the following 20 years, from 2031 to 2050, the proportion of people aged 20–64 will remain relatively stable at around 55%. The number of people over 85 will certainly increase, but the number of people aged 65–84 and 0–20 will decrease, creating a new balance.

Six years. That’s the price we’ll have to pay.

Six years of further belt-tightening. Six years during which every Quebecer will lose a few hundred dollars more in potential wealth each year. Six years during which employers will continue to fight over every resume. But there is light at the end of the demographic tunnel.

And yet, that light does not signify a return to Eden. Quebec will likely never return to the situation it was in in 2005.

64% was not the norm—it was the peak

Fortin makes an assessment that few commentators dare to voice: the 64% peak in the labor force in 2005 was not a normal state of affairs. It was a historical anomaly. The postwar baby boom was a unique phenomenon—a demographic accident triggered by the end of World War II, sudden economic prosperity, and a pro-birth culture that no longer exists.

Between 1930 and 1950, before the arrival of the baby boomers, the share of the population aged 20–64 fluctuated between 50% and 55%. Returning to 55% in 2031 is therefore not a catastrophe—it is a return to the historical average. What was abnormal was the demographic abundance of 2005. We are not losing something that belonged to us. We are giving back something we had borrowed from the vagaries of history.

Reframing the Narrative—From Decline to Readjustment

This distinction changes everything. If 2005 was the artificial peak, then the decline toward 2031 is not a decline—it is a readjustment. The question is no longer “how do we return to 2005?” but “how do we thrive at 55%?” And there are answers to that question.

Doing More with Less: The Only Equation That Adds Up

While Quebec can’t retroactively produce the babies of the 1970s, it can do something else: make every worker more productive. Automation, artificial intelligence, and the use of robots for repetitive tasks—all of this exists. All of this is available. All of this is underutilized in Quebec.

Quebec’s productivity has been stagnant for years. Quebec consistently ranks among Canada’s least productive provinces. And Canada itself lags behind the United States. An aging population isn’t the only reason Quebec is becoming relatively poorer—but it makes the lack of productivity gains absolutely intolerable.

Every missing worker must be replaced by a robot, an algorithm, or an idea

Japan has been aging for 30 years. It has lost millions of workers. And yet, it remains the world’s third-largest economy. How? Through aggressive automation, massive investment in research and development, and a culture of continuous improvement. Quebec can follow this path—but it will require investment, not just discussion in a parliamentary committee.

Every dollar not invested in productivity today is a dollar that will be doubly missed tomorrow.

Youth Unemployment Rises as Employers Beg for Workers

Here is the most outrageous paradox of Quebec’s aging population. Employers are short on workers. There are tens of thousands of job openings. And meanwhile, youth unemployment is climbing. The news itself recently ran a headline about this “dramatic rise.” How can a country lack workers while leaving its youth by the wayside?

The answer lies in one word: mismatch. Young people with degrees in the humanities are looking for office jobs. Employers are looking for welders, mechanics, and care workers. Quebec’s education system is producing yesterday’s graduates for the jobs of the day before yesterday.

Educate for tomorrow, not for nostalgia

If Quebec wants to survive its next six years of accelerated aging, it will have to make a shift that no one dares to name: revaluing manual and technical trades. Not through slogans. Through wages. Through prestige. Through real investments in vocational diplomas (DEPs) and college-level technical programs. A certified welder earning $85,000 a year contributes infinitely more to the GDP than an unemployed communications graduate.

A topic that doesn’t win any votes

Demographics is the most important—and least sexy—issue in Quebec politics. No premier has ever won an election by talking about the demographic dependency ratio. No opposition leader has ever shaken the government with an ISQ graph. Voters cast their ballots based on their current financial situation, not on the age pyramid for 2031.

And yet. Every decision the Quebec government makes—every single one—is affected by an aging population. The health care budget. Education funding. Immigration quotas. Pension benefits. Fiscal capacity. Everything is filtered through the lens of demographics. And no political party has a coherent 20-year plan to address it.

Short-Term Politics vs. the Long Term

The electoral cycle lasts four years. Demographic aging lasts sixty. These two timeframes are incompatible. A government that were to invest heavily in productivity and technical training today would not see the results for another 10 to 15 years—well after its likely electoral defeat. So no one does it. And Quebec continues to watch its 65 billion evaporate with the serenity of a sleepwalker standing on the edge of a cliff.

A Possible Recovery, an Unlikely Comeback

Fortin asks the question everyone is silently wondering: Will the rate go back up? His answer is measured—and honest. A partial rebound is possible after 2050, if the birth rate increases and immigration levels remain steady. But a return to the 64% rate of 2005 is “unlikely.”

The baby boom won’t happen again. That would require a world war followed by unprecedented prosperity and a complete cultural shift in favor of large families. You might as well hope that the St. Lawrence River flows back toward its source.

The New Normal

The Quebec of 2050 will be a Quebec where 55% of the population will work to support the remaining 45%. This is the new normal. It is not necessarily an impoverished Quebec—but it is a Quebec that will have to be radically more efficient than the Quebec of 2025. More automated. More productive. Smarter in the allocation of its limited resources.

The question is not: Will Quebec survive an aging population? It will survive. The question is: In what condition?

An Inventory of the Invisible

To gauge what Quebec has lost, we need to put a concrete face on that 65 billion. This figure exceeds the total budget for primary, secondary, and higher education in Quebec. It’s the equivalent of 650,000 public housing units at $100,000 each. It’s enough to double the salary of every nurse in the public healthcare system for ten years.

Of course, this money wasn’t sitting in a safe. It was never generated. It’s a shortfall, not theft. But that distinction matters little when you’ve been lying on a stretcher in an emergency room hallway for 18 hours because the system can’t afford to hire enough staff.

The Opportunity Cost of Silence

The most troubling thing about Fortin’s figure isn’t its magnitude—it’s the silence surrounding it. Quebec devotes weeks of debate to a political scandal costing 50 million. It devotes months to a strike that costs a few hundred million. But 65 billion in annual revenue shortfall? A brief news item. An economist’s column. Then we move on to something else.

This silence is the real scandal.

The Choice That Remains

Quebec has six years—from 2025 to 2031—to navigate the most acute phase of its demographic aging. Six years during which the proportion of workers will continue to fall. Six years during which every billion lost will be one billion less for schools, hospitals, and roads.

But six years is also a window of opportunity. Six years to invest heavily in automation. To revitalize technical trades. To adapt the education system to the real needs of the job market. To create a carefully calibrated immigration policy—neither closed out of fear nor open out of intellectual laziness.

The Legacy of the Baby Boomers—and the Responsibility of Those Who Remain

The baby boomers didn’t choose to be so numerous. They didn’t choose to leave the workforce all at once. But the society they built bears their mark—and subsequent generations inherit its flaws as much as its achievements. The Quebec of the Quiet Revolution built a universal healthcare system, an accessible education system, and a vibrant cultural identity. It also failed to have enough children to foot the bill.

The 65 billion that has evaporated is not a punishment. It is a reminder. A reminder that a society cannot indefinitely consume more than it produces in terms of people. That demographics is not just an economist’s subject—it is the foundation upon which everything else rests. And that Quebec, if it wants to remain Quebec, will have to learn to thrive in a different way.

In six years, the aging process will be complete. The question is what we will have done with those six years.

Signed, Jacques PJ Provost