Government Operations Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2020

[Yves Giroux]

Of course.

Credit agencies don't just look at the debt ratio or the total amount of debt. They also look at the government's ability to pay interest on the debt, as well as the government's economic and fiscal outlook.

It will still receive a fairly good rating even with a large debt, if the economy is strong, the fiscal outlook is favourable, the government's production capacity is good, and it is able to repay the debt or at least pay the interest.

Conversely, if the debt is not as high, but the economy is in a moribund state, the government might get a slightly lower credit rating.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I'm not sure whether we will have time for a discussion on this, but I would like to understand the difference between the 1990s and 2020 in terms of the impact of interest rates on the tax system.

Can a comparison be made between 2020 and the 1990s?

[Yves Giroux]

The two situations are frequently compared.

In the 1990s, the debt ratio was quite close to what we see now. Of course, some years it was higher in relation to the economy. The difference is that interest rates were much higher then. In addition, for every dollar of income, an amount between $0.35 and $0.37 was paid to cover the interest charges on the debt. Now it is less than $0.10 per dollar, varying between $0.07 and $0.09.

So the situations are different, even though the debt as a share of the economy may seem comparable. At the time, interest rates were much higher, which meant that the debt weighed more heavily on public finances.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you very much.

I think my time is up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

Thank you, Mr. Giroux.

I do remember paying 15% for my first house mortgage. I remember those high interest rates.

With that said, this brings us to the end of our questioning.

Ms. Giswold, Mr. Stanton and Mr. Giroux, thank you very much for staying with us and answering so many varying questions and being able to provide answers for us. I greatly appreciate that.

Before I let you go, I did talk with Mr. Giroux earlier. I'm going to give him a minute or two to talk about some of the challenges he's having with the timeline for the study we have on the cost analysis for Canadian surface combatants.

Mr. Giroux, you may make some comments to the committee.

[Yves Giroux]

There was a motion passed by the committee asking me to provide a report on the cost of the Canadian surface combatants and asking me to provide that report to the committee by February 5, 2021. The concern I have is that we are just getting data from various sources—DND and other international partners—that sometimes helps us to cost these significant government procurements. With this data just coming in, it will be very difficult for us to produce a report by early February.

The end of February would be feasible, however, taking into consideration the fact that we have to not only come up with the estimate and the numbers, but draft a report that is thorough while being relatively short and in both official languages, which is something very dear to my heart, obviously.

I would ask you to consider the proposal of letting the office and me present to you a report by the end of February.

If committee members still want to have a discussion earlier in that month, I would be happy to testify with any numbers what we have by that time. I could verbally speak about some of the numbers, but I don't think I can provide the report to the committee before the end of February, unfortunately.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you very much, Mr. Giroux.

If you're okay with that, we'll take a couple of questions, if there are some that we'd like to throw out.

Ms. Vignola, your hand is up.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Good evening, Mr. Giroux.

I completely understand what you are saying. As I said earlier, you are doing a remarkable job and we are very grateful to you. I know that the workload is increasing and that you probably need more staff in your office.

Since I am the mover of the motion, I would like to suggest February 26 for the report to be tabled, if all members of the committee agree.

Would that date be better for you?

[Yves Giroux]

Thank you very much, Ms. Vignola.

That would be better not only for me, but also for the analysts working on issues related to national defence. I must say that my office has very few analysts who are fully conversant with these issues.

Therefore, it would suit me very well, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you for that proposal for February 26.

Are there any other questions?

Mr. Green, go ahead.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I do have a question, although it's unrelated to the PBO, but certainly in keeping with our dates and timelines. You'll recall, Mr. Chair, through you to clerk, that I had a motion that would have produced documents that should have been presented yesterday. I'm wondering if you could provide me with the status on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Green, we are actually going to get to that point just after we finish with this, if you'll just bear with us.

Is there agreement on February 26 being the date?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I'm seeing nods of heads in committee, Mr. Clerk.

[The Clerk]

Yes, there is agreement in the committee, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Giroux, Mr. Stanton and Ms. Giswold for being with us. You're very welcome to leave us at this point.

With that said, I want to remind everybody that we're not in camera. We are in public.

I'm going to ask the clerk to comment on the information that Mr. Green was looking for. We did receive it yesterday. I'll have the clerk talk to you about what's going on.

Mr. Clerk, go ahead.

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Green, just to correct you, you didn't have one motion that had documents due yesterday. In fact, there were two separate motions, both of which were adopted by the committee. I raise this because the documents coming from both motions have to be treated somewhat differently, based on the way the motions were written.

For the motion regarding the information coming from the national emergency strategic stockpile, those documents have been received by my office. However, those documents will be vetted by the law clerk, as per the terms of the motion. We are transmitting those documents to the law clerk's office now. I have not heard from the law clerk on how long it will take them to vet those documents. As soon as I get an estimate, I can transmit that to you. The law clerk was unable to provide me with any sort of indication until they saw the number of documents or the number of pages submitted to them. As soon as I have more information on this, I'll be able to let you and the committee members know.

With regard to the second motion, which deals with disaggregated data, this information, as per the motion, does not have to be vetted by the law clerk's office. We can publish it directly to the committee's web page. We have received a very large number of documents related to this motion. We are currently working on having them posted as soon as possible. I would not like to venture giving you a hard and fast deadline of when we intend...however, I'm hoping that if all goes well, by early next week the documents will all be published on the committee web page. A note will be sent to the members indicating when they are all available.

I believe that is everything I have to say at this point, but I am prepared to take questions if members have any.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

Mr. Green, I'm assuming you have a question.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Well, it's mostly just a statement. I think Mr. Cardegna does a fantastic job explaining the procedures. I appreciate that. I'm heartened to know that the documents have been produced. I am a little bit chagrined that they could be sitting in purgatory with the law clerk's office. I'm unclear on what that means for those particular documents. I'm glad it's now on the record that this is the case.

I'm also glad the documents were at least produced on time. With that intention, I'll just know to perhaps word my motions, moving forward, in a different way.

Thank you.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chair, may I perhaps add one comment to what Mr. Green has said?

I should have specified that as soon as the law clerk has finished revising those documents, they also will be published on the committee web page. Again, a note will go out to members indicating that they are available. I apologize for not mentioning that earlier.

Mr. Paul-Hus has indicated an interest in speaking, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Go ahead, Mr. Paul-Hus.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Clerk, do we have any information on the documents about Nuctech to be submitted to the committee by December 10?

[The Clerk]

So far, I have no information to report. I have followed up with the departments that were required to submit documents in accordance with Mr. Green's two motions. I usually begin my follow-up with the departments during the week prior to the scheduled date of receipt. As soon as I have some information, I will share it with the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

I'm not seeing any other hands up.

Thank you, everybody, for being with us today. I'm sorry we were unable to go in camera. Hopefully, all the technicalities will be worked out for Monday so that we can have the in camera session.

With that said, I will drop my Ottawa Senators puck and call this meeting adjourned.