The total debt of the federal government, if you look at the projections in the latest update in the spring economic update.... I'll be looking very carefully when the next budget comes out to see what the projections are. The gross debt is now, as you look into the out years, projected to rise above $3 trillion. That is a lot higher than the net debt figure that is the headline figure in budgets and in the public accounts, because it is the gross amount, and there are a lot of financial assets that the federal government is building up over time.
If you look at the financing requirement lately and in the projections, it's a lot bigger than the deficit. The reason is that they're borrowing in order to accumulate these financial assets through Crown corporations and so on.
The concern that I have is about the value of those assets. Is every dollar that's shown as a federal financial asset really a dollar that ought to be shown on the balance sheet? If some of these loans are being made at concessional rates, or if some of the loans are being made to entities that are going to have trouble repaying them, then we ought to be showing that as expense. It ought to be showing in the deficit. It ought to be showing in the regular debt number.
We do want to pay attention to what's going on with the federal balance sheet.
You said yourself that—