Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McGirr, let us get back to part 6 which deals with the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act if I may.
When we had the pleasure of discussing this earlier this week, you made a statement regarding the way equalization is being calculated and which is referred to in Clause 1647 that amends paragraph 24.702(b) of the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act. This is what determines the entitlement to a substantial increase in the payments to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island.
And how come we are also talking about Saskatchewan and Newfoundland-and-Labrador? There has also been a request, which is political in nature and not within your purview, regarding the determination of the value of what is produced by Hydro-Québec and its impact on the calculation referred to in part 6.
So the question I want to ask you is this. I am looking at what you said earlier this week, when you explained two different things. You said, first of all, that it is difficult to know what is generation and what is a different business. You only consider total profit. You raised the possibility of setting up separate corporate entities. These are the words you used. I demonstrated to you that Hydro-Québec has set up corporate entities that are so distinct and separate that they do not even share their figures and report separately at year-end. You just swept this aside saying that these are figures provided by Quebec.
So I would like to know, given your analysis about setting up separate corporate entities, why you refuse to accept the figures provided by Hydro-Québec?