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.... Actually, they were savings related to higher lapses, savings related to future strategic reviews, savings related to potential assets sales. We had asked for additional information from the Department of Finance and the Privy Council Office. I think effectively what we were told in that response was that with regard to those measures, those processes were under way. They haven't completed those processes. They're not in a position to give us information at this point in time as to why they're adjusting the fiscal framework for those measures.
I think the message we provided to those officials, which I'm happy to release here today, is that if the fiscal framework is adjusted, then it is important, it's incumbent upon our office, the parliamentary budget office, to know why the fiscal framework is being adjusted. We saw in budget 2009 some additional information about how the savings will be achieved on strategic reviews, but we did not get the other additional information. There are figures, as you say, upwards of $8 billion that we still don't have details on.
With respect to how we're handling the potential impact of employment insurance premiums when we look at fiscal stimulus, we've raised an objection in our paper--or not an objection, per se, but just an issue in terms of stimulus.
Again, we look at the $40 billion rough estimate for stimulus as being a gross measure. We looked at some of these contractionary measures that were actually introduced in the fall, and we're saying you need to net those out of your gross stimulus, because they're actually going to have an effect. You start cutting departments and you effectively will be cutting compensation as well. You're taking stimulus out of the economy.
Then on the employment insurance side, basically, we have an act. It's an act of Parliament. That means we'll keep the revenues and expenditures balanced on a year-by-year basis. This really gets to your point about the second $8 billion. The government has basically assumed that what counts as stimulus is the fact that we will not be increasing premium rates in 2010, as part of its stimulus package.