Evidence of meeting #14 for Public Accounts in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was year.
A video is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
On a point of order, Madam Chair. We still have no interpretation.
Conservative
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
However, I am surprised to be the only member of the committee to mention it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly Block
The clerk just advised me that we may have lost translation, and you, in fact, confirmed that.
Madam Clerk, do we have this resolved?
Liberal
Kody Blois Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Madam Clerk, I have about two and a half minutes on my clock. Is that about the same as yours? Have we stopped it?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
I can stop there.
Thank you for the question. Hopefully that table will spell out the math behind the question you're asking.
Liberal
Kody Blois Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
It's looking, certainly, at the assets that we hold in pensions to offset the fact that...to make it comparable to other jurisdictions. Okay, I appreciate that.
There is also in this report.... Perhaps this is a question for the deputy minister. The average private sector real GDP growth was 5.5%. That was the estimate on the average when this book was produced. We've had some challenges, a second wave.
Deputy Minister, do you want to weigh in a little bit on whether or not you think that's still an accurate forecast? What are you seeing in terms of some of the economic challenges in the days ahead?
Deputy Minister, Department of Finance
Is your question with respect to 2020-21?
Liberal
Kody Blois Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
My apologies, it's 2021 growth. It's talking about a rebound of 5.5%. My question, broadly, is this: Is that still accurate, in your view, given the fact that this was a few months old when it was published?
Deputy Minister, Department of Finance
That's a very fair and a very good question. This morning, the International Monetary Fund published a new global outlook. One of the points that it emphasizes in that report—these are its words—is “exceptional uncertainty”. All of these estimates are very difficult to make, given the situation that you are all very familiar with. I think we need to be cautious in any kind of very specific point estimate of what growth will be.
I will say that what we are seeing is.... If you think about the economic dimension of the pandemic, we had this tremendous downdraft in the economy. In the second quarter, I think we had a drop of something like 38%. It's almost—or I think, indeed—unprecedented. Then we saw a very quick comeback, a resurgence of growth.
What we're seeing, both in Canada and globally, is that through the course of the late fall as the second wave developed momentum, the estimates that were made in the fall were probably erring somewhat to the up side because of the intensity of what we've seen in the second wave, and therefore the need that governments at all levels—and, indeed, in all countries—have taken with respect to trying to lock down their economies, so—
Liberal
Kody Blois Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Madam Chair, I have it at about five minutes and 30 seconds, and I started right ahead—or not.
Liberal
Kody Blois Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
I apologize. I do try to keep my time, and I have it at five minutes and 35 seconds. That would include [Inaudible—Editor].
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly Block
I appreciate that. I'm going by my clock and between the clerk....
Deputy Minister, Department of Finance
Is it possible that I could just finish the sentence?
Conservative
Deputy Minister, Department of Finance
Okay.
As a result of those lockdown activities, that's having an impact, and that will probably lead us to a world of somewhat lower growth than that number would have suggested.