Monique Jérôme-Forget

Monique Jérôme-Forget (French pronunciation: [mɔnik ʒeʁom fɔʁʒɛ]; born August 8, 1940) is a psychologist and a former Quebec politician.

She has been heavily involved in the community, working for the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, la Cinematheque Québécoise, the Quebec federation for the environment, the Social policies committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Medical Council of Canada and the Société investissement jeunesse.

She also put together the most important infrastructure program in the history of Quebec ($41 billion for the first five years) and introduced in that province the concept of Public-Private Partnerships (or PFI) and to oversee it, she set up an agency that has won two international prizes for the quality of its work.

Under these initiates, as she resigned her position in the government some $10 billion of projects from highways to teaching hospitals and concert hall were under way.

It also initiated a phased abolition of the capital tax on businesses and continued a policy of significant funding increments to the health and education missions.

Over the period 2007–2008, she supervised the negotiations that led to the "Montreal Accord" to deal with the problem with asset-backed commercial paper.

At her request, she gave up her portfolio of government services to Bellechasse MNA Dominique Vien as well as the position of President of the Treasury Board to former Finances Minister and former Deputy Premier Monique Gagnon-Tremblay but kept the responsibility for the Infrastructures program.

In the last months of 2008, she played a key role in developing a joint effort by the Alberta, Ontario and Federal governments, and of course that of Quebec, in providing guarantees to holders of asset backed commercial paper.

She announced in that budget and the economic statement made in January several stimulative measures such a program called REA-II as well as additional funding of $100 million each for Investissements Quebec and the Societe Générale de Financement.

However, she was clear that other, unspecified tax increases or expenditures cutbacks would be needed to restore a balanced budget.

A federal-provincial tax controversy ensued one week later following the decision by the Ontario government to harmonize the PST and the GST.