THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE HAS APPEARED IN THE RECORD ON May 22, 2003

Did the PQ attempt to highjack
the elections?


The $4.36-billion election budget shortfall did little to relieve my skepticism towards politics. To put it politely, I was outraged that as taxpayers and voters, we were not informed of this highly significant information before Election Day. While there was some opposition mumbling of a potential $1 to $2-billion budgetary shortfall before Guy Breton released his report on April 30, I had no idea that it would be as high as $4.3 billion.

To make matters worse, some Quebec political pundits reacted as if budget shortfalls are as common as they are legal. When they resorted to expressions such as "smoke and mirrors ", " cheap accounting tricks," and " sleight of hand ", I had the impression they were referring to some slick used car salesman trying to sell a hunk of scrap to an unsuspecting client.

As for the ex-Auditor General's conclusion that the $4.3 billion deficit had not been entered in the Marois budget due to overly optimistic revenue projections and underestimated expenses, my first reaction was that he was being far too diplomatic. I preferred a more simplistic explanation, namely that the PQ leaders wanted to conceal Quebec's true fiscal situation. And for what purpose? My first theory was that they wanted to highjack the elections by passing off their budget as "balanced". By doing so they would make the party platform more appealing to the voters.

Pre-election polls

About the high jacking theory -believe me, it isn't all that farfetched. Remember, by March and early April, the polls showed that the PQ was tied with the Liberal party. Both parties had 36 per cent of the vote once the six percent-undecided votes were redistributed. Had it not been for Jean Charest's convincing performance during the March 31 televised debate, the election results could have resulted in a PQ victory. Although the April 14th election results were a victory for Jean Charest's Liberals, their popular vote was no more than 51 per cent despite winning 76 seats out of 125. The PQ share fell to 33 per cent and ultimately, from 78 to 46 seats.

In retrospect, if the PQ had hoped to highjack the election results, it never came close to achieving such a goal. Assuming Quebecers wanted a change in governments even a PQ "balanced" budget was not enough to derail the Charest train. On the other hand, had the electors known all along of the $4.36-billion shortfall, it seems only reasonable to assume the PQ would have lost considerably more seats than it did.

Tilting the odds in favor of a PQ victory?

Therein lies the key question. Did both the former Finance Minister Pauline Marois and former Premier Bernard Landry who was once himself, Finance Minister, intentionally hide Quebec's true financial picture in order to tilt the odds in favor of a PQ victory? If they did it can only serve as another reminder why politicians are at the top of the list of Canada's least trusted professions.

With what we now know about the PQ budget from the ex-Auditor General's report, both the timing and the manner in which it was "marketed" raise a number of disturbing questions.

The PQ campaign

It is worthwhile remembering that it was on March 11 that Finance Minister Pauline Marois tabled her 2003-4, $56.65-billion budget, which she referred to as a "cautious one, with small steps aimed at building "a more caring society." The following day, Premier Bernard Landry asked Lieutenant-Governor Lise Thibault to dissolve the National Assembly and then announced the election date for April 14.

Because of the election call, the budget could not be subject to the usual parliamentary scrutiny .

Emphasizing "balanced" aspect

During the election campaign Finance Minister Marois rarely failed to emphasize the "balanced " aspect of her budget beginning with her press release of March 11, entitled," Another balanced budget and concrete action". In her budget speech, she said it responded to three fundamental needs, one of which was to "maintain a balanced budget. " During the campaign, she qualified it with such statements as,".. a prudent budget, one which was aimed to maintain a balanced budget, for the 6th year in a row", " Never in the modern history of our nation has a government succeeded in managing public finances so responsibly" and finally, "... a budget which is indicative of a responsible administration ".

Premier Bernard Landry also got into the act .He attacked Jean Charest's promises to cut personal-income taxes and boost health-care spending by comparing them to " those kinds of ideas that will result in red ink following several years of balanced PQ budgets". With what we have since learned from Guy Potvin, the clincher occurred during a closing speech at a PQ convention. The former premier told party delegates that if the liberals were elected, " they would renew the Liberal tradition of deficits," and added, "Never again will we risk bankruptcy of our national state because of negligence or demagoguery."

Pauline Marois must or should have known

The fact that it took the former Auditor General, less than a week to discover the $4.36-billion shortfall, makes it difficult to believe that Pauline Marois was not aware of the full extent of the deficit. Not only is she reputed to be both intelligent and politically astute, at the time she crafted her budget she had unlimited access to the best financial minds.

If Guy Potvin was able to determine the true picture of Quebec's revenues and finances, as Minister of Finances, why couldn't she do likewise? Lest anyone has forgotten, on top of earning a MBA, since 1955 she has held an impressive number of ministerial responsibilities, including Revenue, Education, Finances, Labor, Public Service, Health and Social Services, Science and Technology and Industry and Commerce. Last but not least when she presented her 2003-4 budget she was also vice-premier and considered the front-runner to replace former premier Bernard Landry as the head of the PQ.

Next week: Part II: Lame duck excuses?