Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome, Minister Flaherty.
It's good to see you back in the country. You're here tonight with a small army of officials. I think there are close to 50 of them here. That's a lot of horsepower you're bringing with you. We are dealing with a 450-page omnibus bill that amends over 60 laws and we've been pressed to look at these changes within a limited time.
You started off talking broadly about the economic context, and I wanted to ask you about that. The labour force survey for October showed that it was public sector jobs that kept employment up, even when the private sector shed 35,000 jobs. The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that the government's cutbacks will result in a 1% decrease in GDP by 2014.
I'm wondering if you can clarify why you're implementing more cutbacks when it seems to be the public sector that's keeping the job market afloat, and when we know that more cutbacks will be a drag on economic growth.