All that we will remember about Mr. Legault is that he was one of the most spendthrift prime ministers in recent history (and this, even disregarding COVID) while the Quebec state was already quite large relative to the economy. In my fiscal ranking of Quebec prime ministers (released in 2022), Mr. Legault ranked 12th out of 14 for budget discipline, behind Lesage and Bourassa (first term). An update places him at 13th (tied with Bourassa) if we add the most recent years. The comparison is actually biased in his favor: Lesage and Bourassa expanded the state when it was still modest — below 10% of GDP for Lesage and below 15% for Bourassa. Mr. Legault, on the other hand, increased the size of the state when it was already exceeding 24% of GDP. Ultimately, some will point out that Quebec has caught up a bit with Ontario -- yes and no. Quebec has caught up because Ontario has slowed down. Relative to the ROC minus Ontario, Quebec is stagnating quite a bit. Adjusted for the cost of living (which previously favored Quebec) and for household size (to compare equivalent adults), the catch-up during his reign does not seem to exist. I’ll add one thing. In 2023, at the Economic Trio, we interviewed Philippe Couillard to talk only about his fiscal policy (notably on the so-called austerity -- which never happened). What Mr. Couillard pointed out is that he returned to balance simply by increasing total spending at the same rate as inflation + population growth. Thus, real spending per person remained stable during his reign. If the now former Prime Minister Legault had followed Mr. Couillard's policy in 2022 (see third image), Quebec would return this year to a state that would be the same size as before the pandemic. Instead, we have a state that has become marginally smaller than at the peak of the pandemic. For all practical purposes, his reign has been a strange collage: fiscal policies worthy of QS, identity policies reminiscent of the PQ, a pro-business (but not pro-market) behavior, and an economic nationalism borrowed sometimes from the PLQ, sometimes from the PQ, sprinkled here and there with socially conservative reflexes. The result: a deeply incoherent mix, bordering on schizophrenia in terms of governance.