Legault creating confusion on surplus: Liberals
The provincial Liberals Wednesday accused Premier François Legault of deliberately creating confusion about the province’s financial surplus by questioning his own government’s numbers. An hour after Legault let it be known he’s not sure the province’s surplus is actually $3 billion as stated Friday by his finance minister, the Liberals lashed out. They accused Legault of cooking up a story — possibly as a way of skipping out on some of his more expensive election promises by saying the money is not there. Either that or Legault, who is also an accountant, has come up with some ingenious way to tally up the numbers nobody has ever heard about, the Liberals said. “Is Mr. Legault looking for excuses to not fulfil the promises he made in the election campaign,” Liberal Treasury Board critic Gaétan Barrette asked at a news conference. “Was he elected under false pretences? “Maybe he is headed for the Nobel Prize in accounting because he has discovered something.” Barrette was responding to some surprising comments made by the premier Wednesday morning on his arrival at the weekly meeting of the Quebec cabinet. Pausing briefly on the sidewalk, Legault put in question numbers made public by the finance department Friday showing his government has arrived in office to find the Liberals left them a $3-billion surplus. “We need to ask if this really is a $3-billion surplus,” Legault said as he breezed past reporters. “We’re in the process of reviewing the accounting methods. I’m not certain there is a $3-billion surplus.” On Friday, Legault’s finance minister, Éric Girard, held a conference call to release the province’s financial numbers covering the period from April 1 to Aug. 31. In the official document, released by the ministry, the surplus is pegged at $3 billion. Girard specified he did not expect that number to be as high at the end of the fiscal year once all the revenue and spending figures come in. “I don’t anticipate we will have $3 billion over the horizon of 12 months,” he said. He made no mention of possible changes to the accounting system at the time. Asked to comment on Legault’s statement Wednesday, Girard was cautious, saying “there is no $3-billion surplus,” because that number does not cover all the revenues and spending for the full year. He added the province will get a better idea of the real financial situation when he tables his promised economic update — expected in the first week of December. “The exact state of the province’s finances will be known in December as part of the economic update,” Girard said. He has already said he wants to see Ottawa’s economic update, Nov. 21, before proceeding with his. But the Liberals pounced with comments from Barrette and a series of tweets in which they noted Quebec’s auditor general, before the election, confirmed Quebec’s finances were on sound footing and the Liberal numbers on track. Former Liberal finance minister Carlos Leitão, now the Liberal finance critic, chided Legault. “Review the accounting methods? Get serious Mr. Legault,” Leitão tweeted, noting Girard’s comments Friday.