Only $1 billion, Mr. Speaker. Another minister got into a great deal of trouble for saying something like that about 30 years ago.
When the EDC writes off bad loans, the taxpayers end up on the hook, and taxpayers have no way of even tracking where or how these bad loans were incurred. EDC is exempt from federal access to information laws and all the standard accounting practices that we expect from the government departments.
Again, we are asking the minister to give a straight answer to the question. How many taxpayer dollars have been lost by EDC on bad loans?