On Sunday, February 18, a press conference on investments in education took place. François Legault accompanied by Ministers LeBel and Drainville. Good announcements. Let’s see how it all plays out over time. It must honestly be admitted that he insisted on the importance of education for a society. He reiterated that for him and his team, it is a priority. Well done.
At the end of his presentation, Mr. Legault took care to specify that there was a cost to these investments. “Expect a bigger deficit…” he reminds us. He even took the time to look at his notes. It was prepared, and we can assume that an entire team had approved this speech.
What he reminds us is that the future deficit will be caused by the demands of teachers, who want to improve the conditions of practice of the profession and, thereby, the future of our children.
Of course, the coming deficit will have nothing to do with the $7 billion that we are collectively preparing to inject into a foreign battery company. Nor with the 6-7 billion agreed in tax cuts at the time of the CAQ election. Nor will it be caused by the $7 million that will be given to the billionaire owner of a hockey team so that the team can come and play two games in the off-season. Nor by all these megawatts of electricity that we will distribute left and right, at a discount and at a loss, to these greedy foreign companies which will come to set up in our industrial parks, while asking Quebecers to turn down the heating by 2 °C at night so that we can give gifts to these companies. Nor by a possible third link project of 10 billion not yet buried.
No, if there is a deficit, it will be because of workers in the education sector. The Prime Minister was so well off with his speech, he managed to spoil the sauce… They are barely recovering from a long and painful strike, they do not need to carry the weight of future budgets, and even less that of other spending and investment decisions that our government has chosen and will choose to make.
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