Seminar: Financing Quebec Public Schools from a Comparative Perspective - Property Taxes and Small, Remote or Declining Schools

CIRANO

Wednesday 11 Sep 2019
From 12PM To 2PM

Jean-Philippe Meloche, Associate Professor at Université de Montréal and CIRANO Fellow, and François Vaillancourt, Emeritus Professor at Université de Montréal and CIRANO Fellow, presented the results of the CIRANO report "Le financement des écoles publiques québécoises dans une perspective comparative - La fiscalité foncière et les écoles petites, éloignées ou en déclin" (co-written with Stéphyanie Boulenger).

This study shows that the use of local property taxes to finance primary and secondary education is common practice in Canada, the United States and Europe. Reforms in recent years have contributed to reducing the autonomy of Quebec school boards, making them more dependent on transfers. Financial adjustments to take into account local particularities, such as school size, remote locations or declining enrolment, are complex and examples of good practice are rare in North America. The authors of the study suggest that it would be desirable to simplify these practices.

Jean-Philippe Meloche

A CIRANO Researcher and Fellow since 2015, Main Researcher of the theme Territories, Jean-Philippe Meloche is Associate Professor at the École d'urbanisme et d'architecture de paysage of the Université de Montréal. He is also the Director of the École d'urbanisme et d'architecture de paysage of the Université de Montréal.

He is also Researcher at the Ivanhoe Cambridge Observatory of Urban and Real Estate Development, Member of the Réseau Villes Régions Mondes (VRM) and Member of the Sustainable Mobility Observatory.

Holding a Ph.D. in Geography from the Université de Montréal, he specializes in urban economics, local and regional economic development. He is particularly interested in the real estate market and urban infrastructure. His most recent research focuses on Quebec's local public finances and urban transportation.

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François Vaillancourt

A CIRANO Researcher and Fellow since 2004, François Vaillancourt is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Economics at the Université de Montréal.

Holding a Ph.D. in Economics from Queen's University, he has published numerous texts in the field of public policy, particularly on intergovernmental financial relations, taxation and language policies.

He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2009. Since 2000, he has been the Fulbright Canadian Research Scholar in Kennesaw in 2007, visiting professor at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies in Atlanta in 2007 and 2009, visiting professor at the FUCaM (Mons, Belgium, 2006) and visiting professor at the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (Paris, 2006 and 2008). During the 1990s, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Toronto (1991) and the Australian National University (1991), a Shastri lecturer in India (1993) and a visiting scholar at the Institute of European Studies (Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1994). He was also a research coordinator for the MacDonald Commission (1983-1986) and assistant director of the journal Canadian Public Policy-Policy Analysis (1986-1995). He has acted as a consultant for various national (including CIDA, House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, Séguin Commission, Law Reform Commission of Canada, Conseil de la Fédération, Conseil de la langue française du Québec, CSST, Finance Canada, Federal Expert Group on Equalization Reform, Office of the French Language, Statistics Canada and Auditor General of Canada) and international (AFD, World Bank, IMF, OECD, UNDP) organizations. He has worked in 31 countries on intergovernmental financial relations issues (taxation, transfers) and provided training in this area for the African Tax Institute, the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, the World Bank, the IMF, and the Hague Academy for Local Governance.

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