I am not daydreaming, but there was another budget today, the supplementary estimates (A). It seems that the debt service dropped slightly from $33 billion to $31 billion. So there was $2 billion.... Therefore, our discussions today are outdated.
I want to come back to the problem of the securities commission. You said that the IMF had not.... You seemed to be a bit surprised with respect to the IMF. The International Monetary Fund has recently commented on the financial market issue on at least two occasions. I just want to read a quote from the IMF report entitled Canada: Financial System Stability Assessment-Update, which seems to indicate that if Canada stands up to the provinces to form its commission, then:
The conclusion is obvious: unless Canada wants to diverge from international norm, a centralized regime would essentially copy and duplicate what already exists.
The fact is it is a cut-and-paste job, cutting from the provinces and pasting to the federal government to fall in line with what is generally recognized around the world. Furthermore, since we were talking about it earlier, the same report states that the IMF examined the ability of a single securities commission to satisfy its two groups of clients—issuers and investors—and also took into consideration the fact that Canada, for example, has different economies. Quebec has an economy based on small to medium-size businesses; western Canada has a real venture-based economy—there is a reason that it started in Calgary and Alberta. One of the IMF's findings is as follows:
Arguably, the current system has responded to the specific characteristics of its capital market, such as allowing for a large presence of small issuers, and the concentration of certain industries in specific provinces.
If we are to believe the International Monetary Fund, if the federal government does take action, it will be a duplication. The IMF also said that Canada's current system reflects market characteristics that are very local, very regional, and that it cannot be repeated afterwards.
I wonder—and I am not looking for your opinions, since you are public servants and you apply federal policies—whether the Department of Finance has done any specific, technical or empirical analyses to show the merit of the takeover by the Government of Canada.