Mr. Speaker, as you can easily imagine, the impacts are many and varied. I think in particular of two categories of citizens in my riding, namely youth and farm producers. I think of them for various reasons.
The cutbacks in transfers for education, health and social services have resulted in fewer services for the young people in my riding. My riding being primarily a rural riding with very few large commercial plants, a number of them sometimes have difficulty finding a job that is both rewarding and a quality job. Thankfully, many are successful.
As a result of the cutbacks, the Government of Quebec, like others, made cuts in health, as we know. This means that cuts were made in areas like drug and sexually transmitted disease prevention. It is much more difficult for the Government of Quebec to carry out its mandate because the federal government has made cuts.
Once again, the government is boasting about its good management. I would remind them that, while surplus forecast may not be an exact science, there are still ways to come up with figures that resemble reality. I will not go back too far, and I take this opportunity to commend the excellent work of my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.
In 1999-2000, when the Liberal government predicted a surplus of approximately $3 billion, we figured it would be closer to $11.5 billion. What was it in fact? It was $12.7 billion. The following year, in 2000-01, the Liberal government predicted a surplus of $4 billion, while the Bloc Québécois estimated it at $18.2 billion. The real number was $18.1 billion. I could go on like this all the way to the current year, but I will stop here. This is no accident, but it keeps happening year after year. That is a shame.
If I were to go back to my economics teachers today and ask them to give me a better grade because my answer was off by only $7 billion, but at least I was in the black, I am not sure they would agree.