Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses from the department for being here. Like Mr. Van Kesteren, I want to thank you for the work you do for Canadians.
I'd like to take you to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report that was released this year, in 2013, entitled “Economic and Fiscal Outlook”. It provides that office's current and medium-term outlook for the Canadian government's finances. It includes updated estimates of the structural budget balance and presents estimates of the economic impacts of measures and revisions to spending levels in the 2013 budget, as well as comparisons to Finance Canada's projections.
In that report, the PBO has pointed to what it considers the real impact of budget 2013: eliminating thousands of jobs, cutting direct program spending, and weakening GDP growth. I'd like to talk about each of those, if I could.
First of all, the 2013 “Economic and Fiscal Outlook” report references $9.1 billion in cuts to direct program spending in the current budget. Is that assessment accurate in your judgment?