Finance committee  It would do two things. It would do exactly what the IMF said. We'd come at it from two directions. First of all, it would create demand in the economy, which we've been lacking for years. We simply do not have enough domestic demand in Canada, so on the demand side it would elev

Finance committee  I'm sure you do.

Finance committee  Should I really tell you?

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Federally, but not provincially.

Finance committee  Absolutely. The federal government is the one level of government that has the capacity and the fiscal capacity to take the leadership, not the provinces.

Finance committee  I think I started at Finance in 1978.

Finance committee  Then I left for part of the 1980s, and then I was there until 2000.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Well, two things. I think those documents that you referred to are excellent because I was instrumental in writing them.

Finance committee  Going to your question, it's an interesting thing about debt. The government has a target of 25% debt ratio, and I assume that when it gets there, it will be happy. Well, if you have a stable debt ratio, my high school math tells me that for a ratio to be stable, the numerator mu

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Yes, and you borrow to finance it. At interest rates today, as I said earlier, it would be criminal not to. You could do that. If you read the International Monetary Fund's latest World Economic Outlook reports, which I'm sure the Department of Finance and the Minister of Finance

Finance committee  Of course if you go back to '94, interest rates were in the double digits. We had a fiscal crisis and we were borrowing on one credit card to pay another credit card. That's an entirely different world. As has been said, we have a stable and sustainable fiscal structure right no

Finance committee  Right.