Finance committee  I think of the circumstances that we've talked about. The primary focus of our fiscal plan right now should be on strengthening growth and job creation going forward. So I would say that when you look at extending the tax credit for fitness, any of that business, including splitting income for families, I don't see any of that contributing to economic growth or job creation.

Finance committee  I think that if you look since 2010, the 2010 growth was very strong in Canada because of the temporary stimulus that was being put in, but if you go from then on, annual growth has fallen for every year, so has employment growth, so there is a risk and it's a global risk and a domestic risk that we are entering over the next five years.

Finance committee  No, it wasn't.

Finance committee  That's a good question and I'm sure the Department of Finance is busily trying to figure out what assumption they should make. It's hard to find what assumption they were making in the last budget, but when you track the price of oil since 2010 it's fluctuated above $100 a barrel.

Finance committee  I would probably be either looking in the $80 to $85 range.

Finance committee  Usually in the budget you can find interest rate assumptions, assumptions on U.S. growth, and so forth. I think there's a chart, but you can't find the price that was assumed each year going forward, so it's hard to—

Finance committee  Absolutely, because it goes to the second part of your question where you asked what if the price of oil were to come in at $80 for the next three years, instead of at $90 or $100? What would that do to government revenues, and it—

Finance committee  Yes, I think so. We call those our rules of thumb. In fact, in the budget you can find rules of thumb for what would happen if nominal GNP fell by...or real GDP fell by, inflation.... There are those rules of thumb that we use—

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, let me apologize for not having a written submission for members of the committee. However, I am going to make a few comments in the time I have. If members wish to find out more background on what I'm saying, they can go to a blog that I co-author with Peter DeVries of 3D Policy.

Finance committee  I have one minute. Okay, I'll just quickly move on, then, to concerns about the surplus. In my view, if you are going to use the surplus, I'd be very prudent. The outlook is too risky to get rid of all that surplus. In my estimation, if oil prices stay below $80 for the next three years, you could lose up to $4 billion to $5 billion annually in your revenues, and that would pretty much take away much of the surplus.