Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen members of Parliament, thank you for inviting us to testify today.
We are pleased to be here to talk about Bill C‑59, An Act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 21, 2023 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023.
Contrary to what you mentioned earlier, Mr. Chair, I am indeed accompanied today by Diarra Sourang, whom you correctly named, but to whom you attributed a title she does not have. She's director of economic analysis, not political analysis, a type of analysis we don't do in our office. I just wanted to be clear on that.
My mandate as Parliamentary Budget Officer, as defined by the Parliament of Canada Act, is to provide parliamentarians with independent, non-partisan analysis to help you fulfill your constitutional role of holding the government to account.
To this end, on December 7, 2023, my office published an analysis of the fall economic statement—published by the Department of Finance on November 21, 2023—and more recently, on March 5, 2024, we published an update of our economic and financial outlook. In the coming weeks, consistent with our practice, we will publish our detailed analysis of the government's most recent budget. These analyses are intended to provide parliamentarians with important information on key issues to inform your discussions on the country's economic and fiscal situation.
To leave more time for your questions, I will stop here. We are pleased to respond to any questions you may have regarding our fall economic statement and budget 2023 analysis, or other work carried out by my office.