Ministère des Finances

Ministère des Finances

The Ministère des Finances du Québec established the Accumulated Sick Leave Fund in 2008 to ring-fence and invest the cash value of unused sick days accrued by provincial employees. Unlike a typical pension fund with member contributions, the fund’s asset base is a balance-sheet liability: the government's obligation to pay out accumulated leave. Minister Eric Girard and Deputy Minister Christyne Tremblay oversee its governance, but day-to-day investment management is fully outsourced. CDPQ deploys the fund’s roughly C$1.1 billion across a multi-asset-class strategy that spans public equities, fixed income, real estate, infrastructure, and private equity. The fund benefits from CDPQ’s in-house direct investment teams, gaining exposure to trophy real assets including Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth, Montreal Eaton Centre, and Place Montréal Trust. Through its co-mingled mandate with CDPQ’s specialized portfolios, the fund participates in buyout-stage private equity alongside the much larger Generations Fund and Retirement Plans Sinking Fund, both of which are also administered by the ministry and managed by CDPQ. The ministry itself has announced the permanent closure of its standalone website by June 2026, integrating all content into the unified Québec.ca platform. This consolidation reflects the ministry’s evolving digital infrastructure but does not alter the fund’s investment posture. The fund’s architecture — a single-client liability pool managed by the province’s largest institutional investor — keeps operational costs low and alignment tight. CDPQ’s President and CEO Charles Emond effectively acts as the fund’s de facto chief investment officer, as confirmed in June 2026 reporting on Quebec’s government fund structures. The fund’s structural differentiator is its origin as a captive balance-sheet vehicle rather than a contributed pension pool. There are no external limited partners, no co-investor clubs, and no fundraising cycles. Every dollar under management represents a future cash outflow to a retiring public servant, which dictates an investment horizon measured in decades. That liability-driven framework — coupled with complete delegation to one of Canada’s largest and most active direct investors — produces a portfolio that looks like CDPQ’s consolidated holdings, but with a uniquely defensive mandate.