Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome to our witnesses.
I want to come back to the issue raised by Mr. Dowdall, someone for whom I have tremendous respect. He indicated—and I think the use of the word “fudged” was unfortunate—that the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report that was issued in the last couple of days did indicate some concern with the GDP numbers that were used as the base for the calculation to get to the percentage.
I don't think you had a full opportunity to explain or to address Mr. Dowdall's concern, but I do think it's of interest to the committee and to the public, so if you could, Minister, talk about the concern raised by the PBO in connection with the 2% of GDP NATO spending target and the allegation that somehow the numbers were fudged by the department, please.