Evidence of meeting #20 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
I appreciate the opportunity.
How does Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio compare to other G7 allies? Take the U.K., for example, and Germany. I think those would be good comparisons.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Is there anybody other than Ms. McDermott available on that one? Are we laying it all on her?
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
It seems like it. I apologize.
In terms of my question, it's simply good to get this on the record, because there's a lot of fearmongering, particularly among my Conservative colleagues but other opposition parties as well, about the debt level and what has happened now. The Conservatives constantly bring this point up without thinking or reflecting on what would have happened if the government did not introduce emergency programs, which have held up the country, which have supported thousands of businesses and which have supported individuals and families.
I have a lot of time for opposition colleagues, especially on this committee, but it's quite something to hear the Thursday afternoon quarterbacking that's happening.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
I'm hoping the answer is coming here soon.
I don't want to get into the partisan debates—
Liberal
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
I'm sorry about that. I've had this written down so many times and we've started our work on the budget process, so I didn't want to be referring to anything that was out of date.
On the federal debt, again, you might recall that in the fall economic statement we showed some scenarios where we were allocating that $70 billion to $100 billion of fiscal stimulus. There were different scenarios and we said we'll allocate, but we weren't actually incorporating it into the full fiscal situation. I'm going to give you the figures that don't have that planned stimulus.
For the 2020-21 fiscal year, federal debt as a share of GDP, according to this statement, was 50.7%. We have that rising to 52.6% in 2021-22. That's sort of its peak, based on the current set of fiscal announcements, and then declining by 2025 to 49.6%.
I'll just note that on the basis of comparisons to other countries in the G7, for example, ours is quite.... I'll just read the numbers out loud, but obviously we're still in the best situation. We have Canada, as a share of GDP, at 46.4%; Germany, 54%; the U.K., 98%; the U.S.A., 107%; France, 110%; Italy, 149%; Japan, 177%; and the G7 average being about 110% of GDP.
Obviously, as you suspected, we're still in good shape right now. Those are the current levels of debt as estimated by the IMF.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I was being charitable when I suggested the U.K. and Germany as comparators, but I think that puts it into perspective.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Peter, I'm going to be charitable and cut you off, because we have to go to the motion.
As everyone on the committee has said and I know everybody is sincere on this point, we thank you all for your efforts. As someone else said, you probably haven't got back the rest that you missed at the beginning of this pandemic. We know, because members from all parties were on the Wednesday night phone call with officials from many departments who were very much scrambling in the end, so we sincerely thank you all for all those efforts.
With that, we'll let you go and we will go to the motion. Thank you very much for answering our questions today.
I believe there is a little information to come back to us. I believe Mr. Halverson had some information on CEBA, Ms. Dancey and Ms. Williams on the $13 billion, and we'll see where the motion goes.
Thank you very much again. It's much appreciated.
Mr. Ste-Marie, we'll go back to you on your motion. Is there any further discussion, or are we going to the vote?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
I don't see any further discussion.
To make sure everybody knows what we are voting on, the motion relates to having an in camera session with folks to talk about some of the expenditures related to vaccines.
(Motion agreed to)
The clerk will work on that as well.
With no further discussion, the meeting is adjourned.
