Evidence of meeting #13 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was economy.
A video is available from Parliament.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Yes. It depends on the quality of the data we would get from the department. Obviously, if we get data of poor quality or that is incomplete, it would not be possible to determine the benefits or the returns. If we get good, solid data it's something that we could do.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
In your view, if the return on that investment were greater than the rate of borrowing, would it not make it a potentially sound investment to be looking at these kinds of programs?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
It depends on the cost of borrowing that you're looking at. You have to look at the cost of borrowing over the lifespan of the program, when the program was first launched and so on. It would have to be significantly higher than the cost of borrowing to take into consideration the impact of either taxation or the cost of setting up the program. There are administration costs, of course. These factors would have to be taken into consideration as well.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Certainly.
I have one final question in the one minute we have, just to build on a point made by Ms. Dzerowicz. You indicated that there's essentially—I forget who used the phrase—wiggle room to the tune of $41 billion in the federal fiscal sustainability model that you've calculated. Is that an annual figure?
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Obviously in the news the dropping price of oil or the coronavirus is getting a lot of attention. To the extent that we need to respond due to certain global challenges, is it your view that the federal government is in a healthy enough fiscal position to actually respond to challenges like this, given the $41 billion of annual wiggle room that you've pointed to in the recent report?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
I think the federal government has some capacity to respond to issues like that without entering into a debt spiral that would see its debt burden as a result of GDP becoming out of control. However, that assumes there are no other demands being placed on the federal government, that there are no other catastrophic events and that programs remain the same over a 75-year period.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I have one final, very quick question to cap this conversation off.
Where do we sit compared to our international partners? I'm thinking G7 countries or comparable economies in terms of our fiscal sustainability.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
In terms of fiscal sustainability, I don't know off the top of my head, but in debt-to-GDP ratio, if memory serves me well, we're in the best third of the G7. I think we're in good company with the Germans and virtually everybody else is in a worse position than we are when we look at debt-to-GDP ratio.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you.
To the Auditor General, this wasn't a request but it was a suggestion. I just want to remind you of it so you can maybe pull it up again. In the finance committee's December 2016 budget, there was a suggestion that the Auditor General conduct a complete audit of the sale and disposition of the assets of the Canadian Wheat Board since the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act received royal assent. There is a concern by producers out there that there's still somewhere around $300 million unaccounted for. That's in their December report. It's not a request; it's a suggestion that was made by the committee. You might want to pull that up and think about it.
With that, we've had an interesting couple of hours. I thank all the members and thank you very much to the witnesses for appearing.
The meeting is adjourned.