Chris Lowrey
QUEBEC Nov. 22, 2017
Across the province, school tax rates are set to undergo a major change.
Although details still need to be announced, the province will change the current taxation system so that both English and French school boards will get the same amount from ratepayers.
There are 18 administrative regions across the province. Each region can currently charge differing rates depending on enrollment in the English and French boards.
The school tax rate is capped at $0.35 per $100 valuation of a property. The current mill rate in the Pontiac is around $0.13 per $100 valuation for the Western Quebec School Board (WQSB).
Currently, those who don’t have children enrolled in the Quebec school system can choose which school board to pay their taxes to.

Those with kids must pay their taxes to the school board in which their child is enrolled.
Usually, empty nesters chose to pay their taxes to the school board with the lowest mill rate. In many parts of the province, this meant that French school boards got more money because more students are enrolled in French schools.
Across the province, enrolment has been declining in English school boards, which led to a higher school tax for parents. It also discouraged those without kids from paying into the English boards because the tax rate was significantly higher than the French boards.
However, the Pontiac is an anomaly in this context. Since there are so many English students, the English board’s rate was lower. This meant that those without kids would opt to pay into the English board because of its lower rate.
“There has been a very significant transfer from the francophone school boards to the Western Quebec School Board,” said WQSB Chairman, James Shea. “That resulted in an even lower mill rate.”
Shea said the shift first started to happen about three years ago. As more ratepayers saw the lower tax rate with the WQSB, they decided to pay the English board. However, this started a snowball effect that has continued to this day.
In fact, Shea said that more than 20,000 rate payers have switched their taxes to the WQSB from a French board.
The WQSB covers an area that includes 10 different French school boards. In each of those 10 regions, the mill rate was higher for the French boards than the WQSB, which meant that empty nesters saved money by sending their taxes to the English board.
With this move, the Quebec government will base the tax rate on the lowest rate in each region.
“There’s no change to the taxpayers currently paying to [the Western Quebec School Board],” said President of the Quebec English School Boards Association, Jennifer Maccarone. “But for the four other francophone school boards in that territory, their rate will now match that of the WQSB.”
The changes won’t result in increased revenue, which means the province will have to step in to fill the void with tax revenue from other sources – or the new budget surplus.
“What it does succeed in doing is reducing the tax rate that [people] have been paying,” Shea said.