Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, everyone. I'm happy to see you all here.
Let's put some context into the good volumes we have here.
We can all agree that the Public Accounts of Canada 2022 are not necessarily representative of a normal year, as it was a pandemic year that brought extraordinary expenditures and revenues.
During the pandemic, the Department of Finance took some leadership, particularly with respect to pandemic-related assistance programs, whether for businesses or individuals. However, I'd like us to take a closer look at the investments related to some Crown corporations. By the way, there is a slight translation error: “investissements” is translated as “participations”, which is not really accurate in accounting terms.
In Volume I of the Public Accounts of Canada 2022, it becomes clear fairly quickly that Crown corporation spending exploded during the pandemic. In particular, the investments of Export Development Canada (EDC) increased by 17%, from $12 billion to almost $15 billion in a single year. A similar observation can be made for the Business Development Bank of Canada, where spending grew from $18 billion to $20 billion from 2021 to 2022.
I have a first question for Department of Finance officials.
Who decided that Crown corporations would administer pandemic-related assistance programs?