Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Page, it's a pleasure to see you again. I thank you for the extraordinary work you do. Like all of my colleagues who have spoken before me, I want to assure you that my party, the New Democratic Party, will provide constant support to your office. We will be taking different measures to make sure that you have the necessary resources to operate and that you will never be interfered with, muzzled, or even punished for carrying out your work. We will wait to see, following the government's fine words, if they will put their money where their mouth is. I'm not convinced that it isn't to the government's advantage to deploy different methods to keep you quiet. Later on, I will be asking a few questions on that, but I just wanted to tell you that the NDP will do everything to make sure that you are always protected in your role.
I would like to refer to page 2 of the French version of your statement. I will ask you to provide us with a breakdown of the $8 billion. Earlier, in one of your answers, you spoke of 2% to 2.5% of GDP as an indicator of all of the measures contained in Budget 2009 to stimulate the economy. The government says it is 1.9%. The NDP, alongside the economists we worked with, estimates the figure to be less than 1%, more in the order of 0.7%.
I want to refer to two points on page 2, to make sure that we are on the same wavelength.
The second point on the top of the page reads: “The government's status quo fiscal track also continues to include just under $8 billion in yet-to-be-determined fiscal savings and gains from the sale of assets.” This is purely hypothetical. It has yet to be determined how the savings will be made and the assets that will be sold. That, we agree upon. So we can agree upon the first sum of $8 billion.
However, further on, in the first long paragraph on page 2, it says: “The PBO views the Budget 2009 $39.9 billion [...]” and under the first point just beneath that paragraph, one reads the following: “Adjusting for restraint measures and maintaining current EI premium rates in 2009 and 2010, PBO estimates that the total “net” stimulus could be about 20% smaller (at $3.8 billion).”
In two instances, the amount of $8 billion is questioned. There's the $8 billion that I've just mentioned, and that you spoke of, but there is also another $8 billion that is purely hypothetical. Can we agree on that?