(Quebec) François Legault has already painted a very positive picture of the finances of an independent Quebec: He estimated the profits that a sovereign state would then make over five years at 17 billion.
Posted at 12:13 p.m.
Patrice Bergeron The Canadian Press
PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon must present an overview of the finances of a future Quebec federal state on Monday.
Mr. Legault had already carried out the same exercise, but with different conclusions than those he draws today. In May 2005, he, then a PQ MP, accountant and former businessman, had updated all the studies on debt sharing, overlaps and duplicates, income and expenditure, etc.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESS
Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon
However, for the Parti Québécois (PQ), it was a subverted exercise, as the first “Year 1 Budget”, presented by Jacques Parizeau in 1973 and discredited by his federalist opponents, had undoubtedly contributed to the party’s electoral failure this year.
But François Legault, a staunch sovereigntist at the time, believed in it. That was long before he gave up the PQ in 2009 and founded the CAQ in 2011. Today he threatens job losses in the event of independence and reiterates that Quebecers “don’t want a referendum.”
The “old fears”
The document, which Mr. Legault signed in 2005, “dispels old fears about the economic insecurity of a sovereign Quebec and challenges arguments about the so-called viability of federalism,” he wrote in the foreword.
“The sovereignty project is not only relevant today, but it has also become urgent,” he even declared in a television report taken over by the Parti Québécois (PQ) to promote its announcement next Monday.
He then estimated that the total financial impact of the revenues collected by the federal government and the new expenditures assumed would amount to a surplus of 17 billion for a sovereign Quebec over a five-year period, between 2005 and 2010, due to the elimination of overlapping The cost savings achieved come into their own.
In return, he estimated that a Quebec that would remain a province would be heading toward a cumulative deficit of $3.3 billion over five years, reflecting the faster increase in spending relative to its revenues and the ” “budget imbalance” with the federal government.
Therefore, by comparing these data, Mr. Legault concluded that sovereign Quebec would ultimately have a “headroom” of 13.8 billion after five years if it adopted the same programs and services as the federal government, it said.
In his evaluations, the PQ elected official estimated that Quebec would get back an average of 20% of federal revenue, or $37 billion, out of $185.7 billion at the time. He also estimated that Quebec would have to forgo $9.6 billion in federal transfers.
Mr. Legault also decided that all Quebec civil servants employed by the federal government would be integrated into the Quebec public service.
Federal debt
Of course, the then PQ MP also focused on the federal debt, which was under control at the time, 10 years after Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s change of direction: Ottawa was running a huge budget surplus of 9 billion!
Quebec therefore had to assume its share of the federal liabilities, which were then estimated at 693 billion, namely the debts, pension accounts and other liabilities.
Depending on the various calculations and studies of the time, this share is estimated at 18.2%: according to this, independent Quebec should inherit 126 billion in federal liabilities, but would also have received back 32 billion in federal assets, Mr. Legault calculated.
It’s been almost 20 years.
In a study cited by Mr. Legault in his statement, the Conference Board of Canada predicted the federal government would run a budget surplus of $80 billion per year in 2019-2020.
That obviously didn’t happen.
In eight years the national debt has doubled, from 628 billion to 1,220 billion, and the size of the federal public service has increased by 40%, lamented Paul St-Pierre Plamondon this week. He then challenged Mr. Legault in the House of Representatives by denouncing Ottawa’s waste of Quebec’s public funds.
The division of the federal debt will therefore be an essential part of the document that the PQ leader will present on Monday.
His CAQ opponent François Legault likes to remind him that Quebec is currently the recipient of an annual compensation payment of 13 billion, much more than when he prepared his portrait of the finances of a sovereign Quebec in 2005.
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon estimates the actual compensation to be around 9.6 billion, since Quebec itself contributes to the compensation program.
“The leader of the Parti Québécois has just admitted in front of everyone that Quebec receives 9.6 billion more on the net than we send to Ottawa,” attacked Mr. Legault in Salon Bleu this week.
The PQ analysis also estimates the savings that could be achieved by ending duplication and overlap with the federal government at $8 billion. According to the CAQ leader who challenged Mr St-Pierre Plamondon in the House of Representatives, these savings were actually cuts.
“Could he tell Quebecers on Monday how many Quebecers would lose their jobs as a result of the $8 billion cuts? ” he asked.
The answer will come on Monday.
Already in an interview with the Journal de Québec, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon replied that independence would trigger an economic boom in Quebec.
Mr. Legault might have believed that in 2005, but not in 2023.