Thank you very much, Chair.
Thanks to all of you for being here today. I really do appreciate your input.
Mr. Cross, you brought up the whole issue of the albatross of provincial debt and our ability for ongoing fiscal sustainability in our country. Mr. Speer wrote a paper recently comparing Ontario to California and showing the abysmal situation that Ontario is in. Here at the federal level we're going to be discussing how to use the fiscal dividend. For the most part, the provinces, perhaps barring Saskatchewan, don't have that luxury, but we here at the federal level do.
Mr. Speer, I'm wondering if you could just initially comment on, one, the best uses for the fiscal dividend, and two, that light that's coming down the tunnel, that locomotive that's coming towards us in terms of the provincial debts that we are facing as a nation and the burden that's going to place on fiscal sustainability going forward. Could you comment on those two initially?