Mr. Speaker, we have a tradition of voting against the budget precisely because there is a tradition of broken promises on the other side of the House.
The parliamentary secretary is telling us that there is no such thing as a fiscal imbalance. This is a case of everybody being wrong except him. I remind him that all political parties in Quebec, all provinces and territories, all opposition parties here and 80% of Quebeckers think fiscal imbalance is a reality. He should come to Quebec and explain to Quebeckers that it does not exist. Even the Prime Minister's Quebec lieutenant, the transport minister, confessed yesterday that fiscal imbalance was synonymous with fiscal pressures. Synonymous means the same thing. Maybe the parliamentary secretary does not quite get it, but if the Liberals admit there are fiscal pressures, it means they are admitting there is a fiscal imbalance.
The parliamentary secretary also told us that we would like to drive the government into deficit. Let me tell him that we introduced an anti-deficit bill, but the Liberals voted it down.
On top of that, his budget projects a GDP increase of about 2.9%, when our projections are lower, at 2.7%, a figure that is confirmed by senior analysts in connection with the surplus. If we are saying that it is possible to achieve a balanced budget with a lower GDP increase, it is because we are not underestimating or hiding surpluses like the Liberals do. That is the problem. Everybody understands except the Liberals. This time, they are fortunate enough that the Conservatives are afraid of an election. Otherwise, we would have a field day in Quebec, after a budget like this one.