So the conclusion I draw from this is that if TD Bank is on the optimistic side and the Conference Board is on the pessimistic side--or the other way around--the Parliamentary Budget Officer is right in the middle, sweetly reasonable. Thank you for that.
Let me now turn to credit, and this is really to Don Drummond and Finn Poschmann.
I certainly agree 100% with the government's move of viability to $12 billion in the auto leasing, and I think it's approximately another $12 billion in lending authorized by BDC and EDC. Where I get extraordinarily frustrated and my usually laid-back self gets frustrated with the head of BDC is when he comes and displays zero sense of urgency. To me, the priority is to get that money out in 2009 because the problem is now, and not in 2010 or 2011 or 2012. I think both BDC and the car leasing facility....
Finn Poschmann said that yesterday he came up with the potential shape of it. How long will it take before it actually happens? It could have happened some weeks or months ago and people today would be buying more cars. Business is crying out for those loans from BDC, and the head of BDC was not even able to tell me anything about when any money would get out the door.
So I have a double question to both. I'll begin with Finn Poschmann. First, do you agree that there is a sense of urgency in getting this money out the door? And second, if you do, do you have confidence that this money can move quickly? We certainly haven't been told anything that would inspire such confidence.