Finance committee  We were not asked. I think in a previous question I said that it would be difficult to assess exactly what can be attached to climate change and what can be attached to events that would occur even without climate change.

Finance committee  It's something that is of concern to me, because there can be, as you pointed out, very valid reasons to disclose an aggregate amount without itemizing it, but not disclosing its changes and the items that are financed from this line makes it much more difficult to follow the money, so to speak.

Finance committee  It's an interesting question as to whether it is the best bet. It's not for me to judge, because that would require me to have an assessment of alternative means for reaching net zero. However, it's certain that providing incentives in the form of tax credits costs less than having the government do all of the heavy lifting by itself.

Finance committee  Suppressed demand is based on demographics, the rate of household formation that we usually expect to see in a normal economy or when the housing market is normal. We compared that with the actual rate of household formation. This is a macro-economic measure that reflects all suppressed household formation.

Finance committee  We have looked into that since a number of parliamentarians were interested in it. I do not have the numbers with me, unfortunately, because we have produced a number of reports over the years, but Ms. Sourang might recall.

Finance committee  Ms. Sourang usually has a better memory that I do. Unfortunately, neither of us remembers the numbers. We did nonetheless estimate the cost of tax measures for the oil and gas sector to be several billions of dollars. We can forward that information to you.

Finance committee  I would rather not say so as not to mislead you in case the numbers I remember are incorrect.

Finance committee  We will be doing a more thorough analysis of the issues we think might be of interest to parliamentarians. We will publish that report in the coming weeks. For the time being, I would rather not comment any further on the budget.

Finance committee  Yes, as soon as it is completed, we will forward it.

Finance committee  It probably would. The more housing there is, the greater the number of housing units available, and the easier it is to reach affordability. Having a target of 20% off-market housing would probably be an important step in restoring affordability, which is currently at a very low level.

Finance committee  Well, it's certain that when you have impacts from the climate on infrastructure that gets damaged or even destroyed, wildfires that disrupt livelihoods or destroy homes, flooding and all these natural disasters, that does have a fiscal impact, because somebody has to pay to repair the roads or the infrastructure more generally, and it can also have negative impacts on the agricultural sector, for example, to name just one.

Finance committee  Costing disaster relief is certainly something that would be possible. One would need to look at various government departments and, in fact, at various levels of government. The difficulty would probably lie in determining which part of that disaster relief is due to climate change and which part is due to naturally occurring events—events that would have occurred anyway, without climate change—and also the part that is due to people choosing to live in certain more risk-prone areas, which is also a factor with cities expanding and people choosing to live in certain areas.

Finance committee  The cost of inaction is something that is real and tangible, but what we've been saying is that the cost of inaction would be minimized if everybody else did something and Canada didn't play a part. It's something that needs to be addressed at the global level if it is to have a meaningful impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Finance committee  I wouldn't want to contradict the Governor of the Bank of Canada on something as fundamental to his mandate as inflation. On the other hand, I don't want to suggest what the governor could or should have done had there not been a carbon tax. It's clear that economic theory would have it that if the carbon tax had been eliminated or didn't exist, inflation would have been lower.

Finance committee  Increasing the inclusion rate for capital gains is something that acts as a disincentive, generally speaking, on capital investment. However, what the government did was increase the inclusion rate for capital gains above a certain threshold and increase the lifetime capital gains exemption for shares in small businesses.