I'll try to answer those certainly appropriate questions quickly, in the interest of time.
First, I think it's a very good point on model risk, and let me give more background to our forecast.
I'm going to take issue with one characterization here; we don't do optimism, we don't do pessimism. We do realism at the Bank of Canada. We don't do spin. When we do a forecast, it's not based on one model. It's actually based on 21 models, four of which are the most sophisticated models in the country. But it's not based just on models. There's a heavy overlay of judgment that comes from hundreds of industry visits and from the most sophisticated business outlook surveys and loan officer surveys and other work that I think you're familiar with. Then, as I say, there's judgment that needs to be applied, particularly in a situation like this, because at the moment we are in a situation, for the fourth quarter, from basically post the intensification of the crisis into the middle of this year, when the models are going to give you the wrong result. You have to apply judgment, because markets are not fully clear, and you have big confidence effects and you have big financial effects taking place.
So we've applied that judgment. And if you look at our outlook, immediately, particularly if you look at our outlook for the first quarter, it is more negative than most people's. We have a 4.8% annualized decline in GDP in this country. So we're bringing that judgment in. What we expect, though, in part because of the measures we've taken and in part because of the measures we expect, including measures that will be announced within the next two hours by the U.S. Treasury and other governments, is that we will start to get some stabilization in the global system. There will start to be a slow recovery in financial conditions and in confidence, and then you will go back to an element of markets clearing and models reasserting. But we still overlay a judgment, which reduces the speed of the recovery, particularly in 2010. The models will tell you that the recovery in 2010 is going to be much sharper than we're projecting. So there is a judgment overlay. I also want to reassure the members of the committee that we are not slavishly following one model; we're using multiple models, and there's a heavy, heavy overlay of judgment, which is an informed opinion.
The last point on it is that there's a big range of uncertainty around those results as well. We have to acknowledge it. And it's our collective responsibility to take steps to reduce that uncertainty. This brings me to the second question, which relates to getting money out the door. I'll make two comments on that, one of which is a macro comment, as a whole, on fiscal measures and on what our assumptions are in terms of when fiscal policy hits, both in the U.S. and in Canada. We see, in both the U.S. and Canada, a much larger fiscal impact in 2010 than in 2009. Now, that's our assumption. People can dispute it and have different views. Ultimately we see the multipliers as much stronger in 2010, which gives us stronger U.S. growth, basically downsided for 2009, and similarly, in Canada, about a 0.9 % boost to Canadian growth in 2010.
On the specific financial measures for BDC and EDC, I would say two things. Obviously this is best answered by the chairs of those institutions. But particularly with respect to EDC, one of the real challenges right now, as I'm sure you know, is trade finance and export credits and the ability to get export credit insurance for small and medium-sized businesses, and even large businesses, for exports. So there is a real market opportunity that is immediately there for them to step into.
On the BDC money, one aspect they're running is this asset-backed securities purchase program. There is a pool of securities out there, and the ability to affect that over the course of the next twelve months, I think, as you said, on the outside looking in, one would expect to be relatively high. But again, the point will be best directed to them. The bank will offer all its support for those measures, if we can be helpful, to make them as effective as possible, particularly on the asset-backed purchase program.