Mr. Speaker, in May of this year I had asked the government member to answer certain questions about the sale of government assets.
It may set the stage if I just repeat quickly the question. I asked the Minister of Finance to comment on his promise to add $10 billion to the government books, $2 billion in the 2009-10 year alone, through the sale of assets. We had expressed at the time a particular concern that in a recession this would be a rather bad time to sell assets and it would be something akin to a fire sale.
The answer I received from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and to the Minister of National Revenue was that at present the government had no plans in that regard and had no other answer.
My question then followed on to the issue the budget, and we had supported it to get stimulus spending out, in which the government had proposed that over the course of five years it was expected there would be $10.1 billion in revenue from the sale of government assets. In the year 2009-10 alone there would be $2.3 billion in fact seen. I will stress that this is not just revenue. It has to be money that is over and above the value of assets. It is actually the book value of those assets.
I would like to ask the hon. member a several point question.
Could the member confirm that those numbers are still in fact what the government expects? Could the member confirm that in 2009-10 fiscal year the government expects to still show $2.3 billion in revenue from asset sales? Does he still believe that over the course of the next five years the number will be a total of $10.1 billion? If not, what does the government now project?
Whichever numbers the government is looking at now, what assets are the government considering to sell? I would really appreciate some detail in the list of those assets, not just a broad several departments. What is the book value of those assets, so we can have some understanding of what the government believes it may be able to see in terms of a profit earned on the sale of those assets?