It's extremely important, Mr. Strahl. The reality is that investors are waiting to hear from the budget on a number of items. When you see a continuous stream of announcements from the government indicating all the spending that's going to be happening, you wonder what is going to happen to the deficit and, second, whether there will be a tax increase. What I'm hearing—very much so—is that there is a concern about an increase of the corporate tax. There's a concern about levelling even more taxes on individuals here in the country, because the reality is that, on the other side of the ledger, if you continue to put out these massive deficits, it will catch the attention of the ratings agencies. Having that kind of interaction with a federal government's creditworthiness is extremely detrimental to the ability of the country to borrow at a low cost.
As you know from looking at the numbers, when we have interest costs that.... I say “we”, but I'm no longer in the government. I'm sorry. However, when there are interest costs that exceed the line items of individual departments in the federal budget, you want to be very concerned, especially if it goes beyond what we spend, for example, on national defence. So, yes, bankers look at this. Investors look at this. Investors are also concerned with respect to whether or not there's any kind of certainty, I would say, from the government in terms of what is coming next with regard to the promises made about the deficit level.
