Mr. Speaker, Ms. Jérôme-Forget, Quebec's finance minister, and François Dupuis and Yves St-Maurice, economists with Mouvement Desjardins, are questioning the Conservatives' decision to pay down the debt at the expense of a more productive, more competitive economy.
Considering the crisis in the manufacturing and forestry industries and the 150,000 jobs that have been lost in the past five years in Quebec, will the minister abandon his ideological position and use a portion of the $10.2 billion surplus to improve his aid package? Quebec is still waiting for a positive response to its demands.