Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank Mr. Fast for his thoughtful explanation of what his worry is around this section. I'm just going to expand a bit more on what Mr. Moreau was just talking about, for those who might be watching or would be interested in knowing.
If they go to the fall economic statement and go to page 141, they are able to see exactly how we end up with—I had to practise this earlier today—the figure of $1.831 trillion. It's exactly what Mr. Moreau was alluding to. It's the current borrowing cap, with the emergency spending, some adjustments around Canada mortgage bonds, and then what is expected to be borrowing until 2023-24.
I think it's laid out very well. I appreciate Mr. Moreau very well articulating that there is a complete difference between a borrowing cap and spending.
I will have a question for officials in a second, but I want to make one more point, which is for Mr. Julian, who was talking about how the government hasn't presented the revenue side yet. That is indeed not included in Bill C-14, but the good news today is that our Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance has announced that we will be presenting our budget on Monday, April 19, and I think we'll be hearing quite a bit on that date about the revenue side, in addition to the overall budget and what our game plan is moving forward.
As for my question, I'm hoping that maybe one of our officials can make this crystal clear. I believe it was our Parliamentary Budget Officer who said this. Can you please confirm that should this $1.831 trillion borrowing authority pass, Parliament still needs to approve government expenditures under this borrowing authority? If someone could just make that crystal clear, I'd be very grateful.
Thank you.