The very same question was put to government by this parliamentary committee. First of all, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is an extension of Parliament; he is an agent of Parliament, so he's asking on behalf of Parliament. He's not going to have a press conference and release this information necessarily.
I think we've identified a very serious problem again in the estimates process, because government seems to have the right to rack up $58 billion deficits, but we don't have a right to know how we plan to dig ourselves out of this hole, except for some very sketchy information. It's my concern that they will try to balance the books on ideological grounds, that the choices they make.... I mean, it's like 007 for that Minister of Finance. It's like a licence to kill, because he now has a deficit to slay, and he can cut and hack and slash at every program that he disagrees with ideologically. The sketchy information we have now is that the biggest cut, the largest single cut, in this effort to reduce their growth in government spending is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, by a percentage at least. They're getting 1.3% of their budget cut. It's not frozen for three years; it's reduced.
Then the National Parole Board is the third highest. Statistics Canada, who we know they have no respect for, is feeling the brunt in the top ten reductions.
We're not getting enough information to accurately access the veracity of the plan, the business plan, and what little information does trickle out gives us cause for concern that they're going to be balancing the books again along ideological grounds, Mr. Smith.
I know that's not your fault, and I appreciate all the work that you do, but we're really.... I know I'm supposed to be asking you questions and not going on talking here, but let me understand this. When you say—or when the government says—they're seeking a 5% reduction, that's not really a reduction, is it? That's a reduction in the growth. The growth rate for the five years before the economic action plan was about 6.4% per year. Does that figure sound right, now?