Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses for taking part in this exercise. You are, in a way, our eyes. We believe in the competence of the people who have worked on the drafting of these reports. That is very much appreciated.
As you will see, I will not be going into any depth. The objective is above all to have you give us tools that we can use to do a better job as parliamentarians and to ensure that public funds are being well-used.
First, I am going to read the last paragraph in the document entitled 2015-2016 financial highlights. This is on page 1.2 under the heading “Financial statements discussion and analysis”. It reads as follows:
1.2 As reported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Canada's total government net debt-to-GDP ratio, which includes the net debt of the federal, provincial/territorial and local governments, as well as the net assets held in the Canada Pension Plan and Québec Pension Plan, stood at 26.7 per cent in 2015. This is the lowest level among Group of Seven (G7) countries, which the IMF expects will record an average net debt of 83.0 per cent of GDP for the same year.
Since the variance here is nearly 60%, I would like you to explain this situation to me. I understand that the previous government did an excellent job, but this is a large variance. I would like to know the reasons for it. I would venture to say the figure is gigantic. It seems to me we cannot be top of the class when everyone is on the third basement level. So much the better if that is the case.