The calculator costs $10; this is even worse. If necessary, we will provide each one of them with such a calculator, so they can learn to calculate. With a simple calculator like this one, we can estimate surpluses within a 3% margin of error, one year in advance.
That is why I was saying just now that the government, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the parliamentary secretary, the member for Outremont are all sullying the reputation of the Finance economists. They are not comfortable with the totally abnormal forecasts we have been presented with over the past seven years. I am sure of that. I know some of them personally, from university days. They can count as well as I can. Their marks were as good as mine. If I and my little team from the Bloc Québécois can predict a surplus within a 3% margin of error, I cannot believe that they cannot do likewise at Finance. This is an attack on their reputation.
Now, for the debt. The member's question was a pretty longwinded one, and my answer will be as well. Good managers can understand this. If there are two debts, and a single taxpayer, one starts by paying down the debt that is costing the most. But here the opposite is being done.
They are quickly paying down the one that costs the least to carry—the federal government's debt, because it has a more favourable interest rate—while letting the provincial debts, including the debt of Quebec, build up at a less advantageous rate. That debt is being allowed to grow.
Where is the proper management in this? There is still just the one taxpayer, but part of that taxpayer's money is being wasted by paying down less costly debts and letting the more costly ones mount up.
So, to continue with my longwinded answer, the third part is this. The Minister of Finance himself asked the Conference Board to review the surplus for future years. Their very conservative estimate suggests that the total of the federal surpluses for the next 11 years would be $164 billion. This was not at my request, but the finance minister's.
The member ought perhaps to look into the actions of his Minister of Finance, because he appears not to know what actions were taken that yielded analyses as off as this one is.