Finance committee  What's included in our baseline forecast is all of the announced policies up to and including budget 2018.

Finance committee  Certainly that aspect of our fiscal forecast is sensitive to interest rates, as are others, namely our public debt charge forecast. For a good depiction of precisely how interest rates affect our fiscal forecast overall, I'll point you to appendix H on page 35 of our report, which shows that direct program expenses, which are concentrated on those future and other benefits, with a permanent 100-basis point increase, would come down by roughly $4 billion per year.

Finance committee  Specifically speaking to table 9, yes, the future and other benefits line on personnel is highly sensitive to interest rates, so as interest rates start to increase, you're going to see the expense line on future and other benefits start to decline over time. As I mentioned in a previous response, this happens with some delay, but certainly for those two, as interest rates increase, that expense should start to decline.

Finance committee  Just to provide a little bit of context around our baseline estimates, we provide three sensitivity scenarios. One is a shock to real GDP, another to GDP inflation, and lastly, to interest rates. You'll see in appendix F on page 33 that the shock to real GDP has the most detrimental impact on the budget balance.

Finance committee  I'd like to point out that the biggest difference between our point of view for the budget balance in 2018-19—so the current fiscal year—and the figures published in budget 2018 is that line in operating and capital expenses. This report marks the first time that our office has actually published its own independent projection for the operating and capital expense components of direct program spending.

Finance committee  That's a very good point. I should add that this occurs with some delay. Because of the way accounting losses or revisions occur, accounting adjustments for the prior fiscal year will be recognized this year, but they'll start to accrue as expenses in future years. They're amortized over many years.

Finance committee  The OECD, the IMF—these international bodies—have comparable statistics on taxation. I'll send the committee this data.

Finance committee  That's correct.

Finance committee  First, for the 2017-18 fiscal year, the major difference between our view and Finance Canada's was in our view on corporate income tax. We think that corporate income tax revenues will be lower than Finance Canada viewed them as being as part of the fall update. That explains much of the difference in our views on the budget balance.

Finance committee  My understanding of this is that dividends are a form of income to an individual, much as labour income would be, and that ultimately the owners of all corporate income are individuals themselves. Income is taxed either at the personal level or at the corporate level, and it's the desire, I think, of the Canadian tax system to ultimately have some harmony between those two systems.

Finance committee  Yes, exactly.

Finance committee  Just off the top of my head, the EI premium rate was higher than $1.88 in the past. In previous years, it had been in excess of $2. I could get you the historical series.

Finance committee  Our benefits projection is mostly a function of our forecasts for the rate of unemployment and eligibility. If program rules change so that unemployed persons are eligible for benefits where they might not have been in the past, it's going to increase the ratio of EI beneficiaries relative to the number of unemployed.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Yes. It's corporate income tax.