Finance committee  I don't know how much. I've never seen a study quantifying the impact of the carbon tax on investment. The PBO has quantified its impact on household incomes, and GDP and found it to be negative overall. I haven't directly seen a study of investment. I think consensus in the economics profession would be that it's a wide range of variables—uncertainties about regulation and how hard it is to get projects moving forward.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. First, I would emphasize that productivity isn't worse than it was in the 1930s. We would be living in huts if that were the case. What I said was that GDP growth over the last decade has been the worst since the 1930s. It's still true, what Rogers said, and I'm glad Rogers made the point.

Finance committee  Thank you. A consensus is emerging that Canada’s weak economic growth and low productivity constitute a national crisis. It is hard to avoid that conclusion when real GDP growth in the last decade has been the slowest since the 1930s. As population growth surged, real GDP per capita slumped to levels last seen in 2014.

Finance committee  I really can't. I'm not going to try to devine how this government thinks. I would just note it's the slowest growth over the last 10 years, not 30, as you indicated. What's really important is not how we compare to countries halfway around the world. What's really important is how we compare to our neighbour to the south.

Finance committee  It's important because population growth by itself automatically increases GDP. People have to eat, have to be housed and have to put clothes on, so automatically, there's going to be more spending and more income from that. What's interesting is that the only two countries that are growing rapidly these days in terms of population are Canada and the U.S.

Finance committee  Yes, one I was talking about was the volume of exports, not the price. The price is not something we control. The fact that the crude oil price goes up is not something that reflects government policy here in Canada. More broadly, I would just say that we tried this approach with clusters, with innovation, R and D and accelerated credits.

Finance committee  Yes, very much so. I hate to remind myself that I spent 36 years in government but one thing, now that I have been outside of government for 11 years, is that I can see the difference in the mentality. The mentality of government is to find barriers, to think of problems that don't exist and then to base regulations on them, rather than thinking how it is we can help move this project forward, which is very much the private sector's perspective on things.

Finance committee  It's increasing.... It's not government tax rates. It's not government spending, and it's not government deficits. It's this increasing intrusion of this mentality into our society that, to me, is increasing what I'm talking about. I'm looking for reasons. Why has growth stalled over the last 10 years?

Finance committee  I've read it multiple times.

Finance committee  Thank you for asking because I wanted to get back to Monsieur Ste-Marie about the culpability of economists in the current situation. I think it's much greater than you indicated. I think economists are not honest enough about our shortcomings. I just touched, for example, on how the Bank for International Settlements has for years stressed that emphasizing short-term demand stabilization policies created problems for long-term growth.

Finance committee  I have a question I would ask them. That's been the justification we've heard for a lot of government spending over the last 10 years: Child care will pay for itself. Infrastructure spending will pay for itself. My question is this: If these government spending programs pay for themselves, why are we still running historically large deficits, and if they were supposed to enhance productivity, how come, when I look at the productivity numbers, they are awful?

Finance committee  I would never tell a business person how to run their business because it's their money. If they are willing to put their money at risk and they go bust, it's their money and they're not coming to me for reimbursement. The problem is that when it's government money I can't avoid that.

Finance committee  I'm glad you raised that matter. It goes back to how—if I learned anything in 36 years at Statistics Canada it is this—you cannot understand the world through statistics. They are a very limited way of understanding the world. For example, you talked about gross versus net. I'm not going to bore people with that.

Finance committee  In any event, one has to look at, particularly when making international comparisons, the total government sector. You can't just look at the federal.

Finance committee  The other problem is that you have to look at gross debt, not net. You can't net out the savings in our pension plans, which are, obviously, set aside. You can play a lot of games with numbers—