Definitely.
Okay, I don't see the minister answering that. We all believe the PBO, who said that the finances are unsustainable.
Moving on, you said in your statement that you want to make operational spending, whatever that is, and balance it in three years. Mark Carney, the Prime Minister, tried this failed experiment in the U.K. last year. It failed horribly, and now you guys are trying the same accounting trick here in Canada. At the end of the day, the bottom line is still the bottom line.
I'll quote the PBO and what he's saying about your claims about splitting it between operating and capital costs. The PBO said, “we haven't seen a clear definition of what would fall into capital and what would fall into operating.” He further said about your operating budget, “We currently don't have a definition of the operating budget”. He went on to say something very alarming: “The bottom line of the government will not change.” That means debt is still debt at the end of the day. It doesn't matter how many columns you try to present in front of Canadians to try to trick them.
He went on to say:
The international public sector standards that everyone uses to measure the deficit and levels of debt will not change. The first reason that won't change is that those are the accounting standards. The second reason is that the ratings agencies won't let you change it. That's the first thing they're going to go to, and if they have a sniff that somehow something...that there's a change in presentation, you can bet your boots that we're going to be paying more for debt pretty quickly.
You guys are going to try the same failed experiment that Mark Carney advised the U.K. government on just last year. Are you guys going to be cooking the books, trying to trick Canadians with these tricky accounting practices, or both?