Madam Speaker, you are very kind to recognize me, especially as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness has attacked the credibility of the Bloc Québécois in regard to these forecasts.
It can be checked. Anyone can check it, even the hon. member for Winnipeg-North could do it, or even more so the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. Every year since 1997, one year to the day before the next budget, the Bloc Québécois has published its forecasts of the surplus. We have done it in front of the press, television, journalists from the press, and year after year, we have come within 3%.
Contrary to what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness claims, we did not do it on my computer. We used a little $1.79 calculator. Watching the economic parameters move and with some intelligence and judgment, we are able to come within 3%.
I would like to ask a question of the hon. member for Winnipeg-North, who was very eloquent and always is, and who does a very good job on the Standing Committee on Finance. I have the good fortune of working with her on a daily basis. She knows the numbers and the situation better than the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.
How is it that the Liberals, with a phalanx of experts, managed to be out by 500% in their forecasts of the surplus, while we and the organization that she mentioned a little while ago were able to come within 3% of the actual figure.
Is this not a way of hiding from Quebec and Canadian taxpayers some of the funds that are available to help them with priorities such as health, education and fighting poverty? Is it not a denial of democracy to hide this money while telling us fibs and saying that the greatest economists have been consulted and these great economists say that there will not be a surplus. The forecasts of all these economists have never been published, we should point out in passing, except this year with the new minister of finance.
I ask this question of the eminent hon. member, who knows the figures quite a bit better than the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.