Finance committee  The government has put forth proposals, principles, actually, in order to measure its own stimulus package. It's talked about, as you've talked about, temporary, targeted, timely. In the context of moving forward on permanent tax measures, in the context of a stimulus package that's not temporary, timely, or targeted, one may argue that this goes beyond stimulus, that these are long-term kinds of measures that were put in.

Finance committee  Sir, thank you for the question. On our website, we actually have a description of our operating model. This talks about how we have to decide on priorities. Just like the Government of Canada, we have limited finances and we have to decide based on a certain priority. Basically we use, like the Auditor General, a materiality and risk framework to decide on which priorities we can look at within the context of our mandate.

Finance committee  No, I'm going to get to your question.

Finance committee  I apologize, sir. If I can go right to your question, sir, if requests come from committees, sir, we will take the reports back to committees. They will be presented first here, then posted on our website after a committee discussion. If there is some independent analysis—which we have done, as one of our analysts, Stephen Tapp, for example, has produced an independent analysis of deflation, which is a significant issue—it wil be released, sir.

Finance committee  Again, we have three named committees in our mandate, this being one of them. With committee support here, you can ask us questions and those will be at the top of our priorities. It is also in our mandate, sir, for individual parliamentarians to ask us specific questions. But given our limited budget, sir, we'd certainly prioritize a question where there's a broad consensus in a committee and give it a higher priority.

Finance committee  Well, sir, we actually don't do independent economic forecasts; we actually provide you with fiscal analysis based on surveys of other forecasters. I think if you look at the International Monetary Fund and the OECD, they suggest that Canada will experience a milder period of economic weakness relative to its major trading partners.

Finance committee  Are you talking about the budget from my office or the Government of Canada's budget?

Finance committee  Mr. Carrier, with respect to the reports you referred to, my office is willing to develop an accountability framework for the government. If it is the committee's wish, I can begin work now and have an accountability framework prepared within two weeks. If it is the will of Parliament for us to examine those quarterly reports, we would be happy to do that as well.

Finance committee  In my opinion, the review of those reports certainly ties in to our role in government oversight. To my mind, it falls within my mandate.

Finance committee  That poses no problem for us whatsoever, sir.

Finance committee  Very briefly, then, the parliamentary budget office was planning on a budget of $2.7 million for 2009-10. It's very important that we get the original planned money. Our understanding is that this money has been set aside in the fiscal framework. Particularly in a time period when you're going to need oversight support, the kind of support we're providing now, it's important that this budget be confirmed.

Finance committee  That's a very good question, and obviously a very timely question, because as you said, governments around the world are looking at stimulus packages now and there seems to be a broad consensus. What Canada is doing now, and as is noted in the budget, is very consistent with what the International Monetary Fund is asking both in terms of size of package and actually, in some cases, even on a principal basis: timely, temporary, targeted, and diversified.

Finance committee  In terms of the multiplier, I'm going to start the question and then ask either Chris or Mostafa to help me with the answer. The rankings show that you tend to get more bang for your bucks, so to speak, if you put it in infrastructure-style investments, because they will create future productivity enhancements, for the most part.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Mulcair, for your support as well as for your very technical question. May I answer in English?

Finance committee  Merci. The parliamentary budget office raised some questions following the economic and fiscal statement about the transparency of certain measures that were introduced. There were some contractionary measures introduced by the government in its fall statement. Specifically as you related to, sir, about savings from....