Thank you.
We did hear from Defence earlier on a follow-up to the previous audits. Maybe that's something.... It wasn't in the management notes, but it looked like some big numbers there. Thank you for your clarity.
Mr. Sabia, one that I looked for first off was the incoming revenue for climate change—the price on pollution—and then the outgoing revenue back to provinces and territories, to see whether we were balancing.
Under section 2 of volume I, “Notes to the consolidated financial statements of the Government of Canada“, part 4(a), “Fuel charge proceeds”, on page 63, states that the revenues earned from pollution pricing amount to $2.65 billion, which is another big number. Then in part 5(c), under expenses, it says that fuel charge proceeds were returned, totalling $2.63 billion.
Almost all proceeds were returned, but given that this program was designed to have all proceeds returned back, could you maybe explain the discrepancy—as a result of taxes not being reassessed or assessed or whether it was a timing issue—to see that money being collected by the government isn't being held by the government and that it's actually being returned, the way the policy was intended?