Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:45 on 2022-01-04 Permalink Reply  

• steph 11:56 on 2022-01-04 Permalink

  Calling the tax-credit a subsity is disingenious. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but the government does this for many industries.

• Blork 12:30 on 2022-01-04 Permalink

  It should be noted that a spokesperson for the Quebec Minister of Finance (a few clicks reveals it to be Audrey Cloutier) said, in 2017, that the multimedia sector creates so much economic activity that “the tax revenue for the government of Quebec generated by the sector is greater than the expenditure related to the tax credit.”

• Joey 12:34 on 2022-01-04 Permalink

  @Blork this is the same argument for building a baseball stadium, right?

• Blork 13:45 on 2022-01-04 Permalink

  @Joey, sort of, although in the case of baseball it’s speculation, whereas with the tech subsidy it’s proven. (FWIW I am not in favour of a baseball stadium.)

• Joey 15:40 on 2022-01-04 Permalink

  I was thinking more from a logical/rhetorial perspective. Anyhow, it seems the tech subsidy economic impact is more “asserted” and “taken for granted” than “proven,” no? And of course these economic impact things always overstate the value of a dollar (i.e., the dollar spent by a Ubi employee winds up counting for like $3 of impact as it moves around the Quebec economy) yet they always exclude the opportunity cost: could propping up another industry (like, I dunno, basket-weavers or pro ball players) generate even more economic value for Quebecers. This gov’t seems to think that any $ invested in the private sector that generates at least the equivalent in tax revenue is good enough.

• mare 18:14 on 2022-01-04 Permalink

  Don’t forget the “made in Quebec” logos on film credits, because some of the visual effects were done here. The whole world we exist now. (I presume games have a similar ‘logo’ placement, but I don’t play computer/console games.)

• David Senik 12:51 on 2022-01-05 Permalink

  Joey, the positive return on investment associated with tech tax credit is provable. Not sure if it’s been done but one could certainly calculate the costs by subtracting the cost of the subsidies from the additional tax revenue the governement takes in due to an increased number of people working who wouldn’t otherwise be employed or working in alower wage job without the credit. For example, I know they’ve done this for subsidized daycare, which demonstrably generates more benefits than costs.

• Joey 13:58 on 2022-01-05 Permalink

  @David I get it. That said, the idea that without the tax credit all those gamedev people “wouldn’t otherwise be employed or working in a lower wage” is harder to prove, no? Moreover, the issue isn’t so much “if we prop up the gaming sector we’ll collect income taxes from gaming sector workers,” it’s “which sectors should we prop up (and for how long) to generate the most societal benefit?”

• Dominic 15:39 on 2022-01-05 Permalink

  @mare Definitely in the Assassin’s Creed series and Far Cry games, the title opens with created by UBISOFT MONTREAL, for what its worth. Large parts of Assassin’s Creed take place in a fictionalized near-future Montreal as well.

• Uatu 22:26 on 2022-01-05 Permalink

  And some of those ubisoft software engineers are tenants of one of my coworkers who’s also a landlord in the plateau. Apparently they’re great tenants and this landlord is happy to have quiet tenants that pay rent on time instead of the students they had in the 80s and 90s.

• Ian 09:43 on 2022-01-06 Permalink

  They certainly have contributed to rapidly increasing rents and gentrification in the neighbourhood.
  Saint Viateur is basically a lunch counter for Ubisoft.