I would certainly like to ask them about that. I would ask them right now, but I don't think they're allowed to take the floor. Perhaps they can sign up to be on the speaking order afterwards.
It's a great concern. We have late public accounts. We had commentary about the pension surplus for the public service.
I have great concern over the surplus for a couple of reasons. For one, I believe the Treasury Board and the government use a false discount rate. We saw some internal documents from the government about pensions explaining that there's an excessively high—in some people's views—discount rate for the funded portion of public service pensions. Their explanation is that they can have a high discount rate because they take higher risk. They get higher returns because they take higher risks, but they take higher risks because the taxpayers are on the hook for any losses. Instead of using a real return bond, as we use for the unfunded portion of the pensions, I think the pre-2005 portion, we use an artificially high number that perhaps hides a lot of the liability this government has on public service pensions.
The C.D. Howe Institute has guesstimated that it's not a surplus but an $80-billion deficit if you use real return bonds like other pensions do. If you look at the public accounts.... I don't have them; they haven't been printed, I think. Apparently, PSPC takes two weeks to print three books this size. Chrystia Freeland managed to get her new book out on a day's notice, in two days, in two chapters, but the government takes two weeks to print a book like this. We don't actually have it here; it's only in PDF. I'd like to be able to look it up, but I can't. I'll explain what the discount rate is.
Getting back to what I was talking about, my concern is with the pensions. Ms. Boudreau explained that that was one of the delays. My belief is that if the pension surplus is recognized in this fiscal year, which started April 1 of this year, then that money would be recognized this year. It would not go into a previous year. Mr. Cannings brought that up, and my colleague from the Bloc brought up the pension as well. We certainly would like to ask questions but, of course, the government is blocking our ability to look at that.
The government is blocking our ability to look at the whole scandal of the finance minister getting turfed on a Friday but still being told that she had to come back and present the fall economic statement, take the fall for being $20 billion over and then take on a new role in cabinet, where she has no staff and no power, to make way for Mark Carney. I appreciate Minister LeBlanc stepping up to take his role as well. Perhaps it will make it easier for him to access clam scam two or some other favours for the family, as he has done in the past. It makes you wonder.
The government knew Friday that Minister Freeland was going to leave her role. We're in an economic crisis right now. We're into our sixth quarter in a row where GDP per capita has dropped, which means that the wealth generated per person in Canada is dropping. We're now at the same level we were in 2018, whereas the U.S.'s has gone up by I think 25%. We used to have an almost even GDP per capita in this country. We're now at about $55,000 U.S., and the U.S. has shot up to $81,000. Ireland, which people used to flee for economic reasons, as my great-grandparents did, now has a GDP per capita of over $100,000 U.S., and we're at $55,000, but I digress.
We are in this economic crisis of a collapsing economy. Unemployment is up to 6.8% or 6.9%. Who knows if it's going to break 7%. It's 10% in Toronto and 8% in Edmonton. Again, that's for six straight quarters.
Former Bank of Canada governor Mr. Poloz stated that we are in a recession. We're not in a technical recession of two straight quarters of declining GDP. He states that we are in a full-blown recession and the numbers show it. The only thing hiding it is the out-of-control immigration growth. Even the government has stated that they let it get out of control and they have to cut it back. They're flooding the country with new people when we don't have housing, hospitals or doctors for them, but it's propping up the economy and the GDP. They're hiding behind that and saying that we have the best economy in the G7.