Deficit hysteria in Quebec: some further thoughts

Deficit hysteria in Quebec: some further thoughts

The current ratio of the debt to the GDP in Quebec is about 43 %. This is as good a   ratio as that of the United States, far superior to that of Japan whose ratio is over 100%, Italy, France, indeed all of the G7 countries except for Canada itself. Quebec incidentally has a GDP of about 232 billion dollars. About 85 % of its exports go to the United States. It is the US' sixth most important trading partner and one of the top thirty economies in the world.
Unemployment is still far too high in Quebec despite the improvement in the overall Canadian rate down to 6.6% in recent months.

But there is enormous economic potential in Quebec because of its hydro-electric energy resources, its aeronautics industry, its knowledge based industries, its software companies ,its bio-pharmacy companies, its cultural industries and the creative dynamism of metropolitan Montreal with a population of over 3.1 million people that places it among the top six cities in North America.
It is simply foolish to push debt reduction through cutbacks or des compressions budgetaire as they say in Quebec when steady economic growth and lowering the unemployment rate through further investment in the knowledge economy, literacy and infrastructure will do the job anyway but without damaging further the social and physical infrastructure.