If I could start again, there is what we in the fiscal business call a natural wedge that is formed. That's because the interest on the public debt is tending to be flat to trending down. In fact, even if interest rates don't go down further, you will see flatter declining interest on the public debt because bonds were being issued at 10% ten years ago and they're being reissued at 4% as they come up for renewal. That gives you the fiscal dividend that you referred to, and it allows you to run your program spending up to some degree. But that has already been done to a considerable degree.
As you noted, program spending has been rising at a considerable trend in the May budget. While in future it is not to rise at quite the pace it had in previous years, it's still rising at a fair clip. We still have to go off the base of the surpluses that were projected at that time, and, as I said, I think they could be $1 billion to $2 billion higher than that. If a government wishes to keep to its commitment of paying down $3 billion of debt, that doesn't give an awful lot of room for additional initiatives, and there are a number being floated around in addition to the fiscal imbalance.
I should just say something in reference to your question about fiscal imbalance. You were asking about the growth on a national basis. There has never been a time in Canada that a national number has been less relevant for anybody in the country. There's no part of the country and no sector of the country growing remotely close to that average. For example—