Thank you very much.
Thanks again, Mr. Page, to you and to your honourable colleagues for joining us today and for providing the parliamentarians with the analysis that you have. We certainly do appreciate the work you've done and the clarity with which you've performed your task.
I have a number of questions for you today, but I'm going to start with what I found to be very interesting: the projections by the IMF, the International Monetary Fund. In reviewing your report, you talk about the fiscal outlook comparison. Looking at what the IMF has said, based on their projections of December, what the PBO has said, and then what Finance Canada has said.... Actually, you've said that this year we're going to have less of a deficit than the finance department has said we will have, so it's going to be interesting to see how that comes out.
But I'm looking more towards 2015-16, because I think that's where Mr. Flaherty...even in yesterday's Globe and Mail, there was a report talking about how balanced budgets are not based on “crossed fingers”.
So I'm looking at what the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, is saying, and what our Parliamentary Budget Officer has said. Looking out in the five-year period, you're still showing a deficit, as is the International Monetary Fund, yet the finance department is saying no, that we won't have a deficit, that indeed we're going to have a surplus.
Again, Mr. Flaherty says it's not through “crossed fingers”, so I'm concerned. How do the PBO and the IMF arrive at their figures? Would you have any idea of how the finance department came to their conclusions?