Liberal Leader Jean Charest campaigned in Shawinigan,
Que., Friday. (Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press)Quebec Liberal Leader Jean Charest released a budget update ahead of schedule after opposition parties accused him of hiding a provincial deficit before the election.
The update suggests the Quebec government is running a surplus this year of $484 million.
Charest referred to the surplus as evidence he and the Liberals have been truthful about Quebec's financial state.
"You are going to get the same numbers that we have already given you, so I don't want to create expectations," the Liberal leader said, about the possibility of a post-election surprise, during a campaign stop in Shawinigan.
The public accounts document wasn't due to be released until December, but Charest's camp made it public Friday under pressure from the Parti Québécois and the Action Démocratique du Québec.
A Liberal government will balance the province's books next fiscal year with the help of Quebec's rainy-day fund, generated by surpluses from past budgets, Charest said.
But the leader warned that the Liberals can't prevent Quebec from falling into economic decline and falling into a possible recession.
"It will depend how severe this slowdown of the economy is," he said Friday. "The World Bank projects that developed countries are all going into a recession, a rather deep recession — including the United States. And they are our biggest markets."
Infrastructure boost pledged
Charest has already promised to allot $41 billion for infrastructure projects between 2008 and 2012, creating about 100,000 jobs.
"It's 100,000 jobs that frankly would not have existed otherwise, and they are direct jobs," he said. "It's a pretty solid number in particular in the [outlying] regions of Quebec, where a number of these jobs will be."
Charest was campaigning in central Quebec on Friday, where he hopes the Liberals will reclaim ground won over by the ADQ in the 2007 election.
The PQ and ADQ continued to blast Charest for calling the Dec. 8 election while the world is in financial crisis.
PQ Leader Pauline Marois insists Quebec is in a deficit, despite Charest's assertions, and a positive financial update released earlier this week by Finance Minister Monique Jérôme-Forget.
Marois accused Charest of recycling PQ economic policies from the last sovereigntist government, including funding skills training and government loans for businesses.
Charest "is adopting the strategy we championed," Marois told supporters in Saint-Amable Thursday night.
Former PQ premier Bernard Landry, who made his first campaign appearance Thursday night, also attacked Charest's economic plan. "I don't believe in his sincerity for a fraction of a second."
Marois said a PQ government would offer a $600-million tax rebate package as a short-term solution to the financial crisis.
The PQ leader spent most of Friday on the island of Montreal, giving editorial board interviews at three French-language daily newspapers, and officially introducing star candidate Louise Beaudoin, a former PQ cabinet minister.
The Quebec election is on Dec. 8.
