Public Accounts committee  Is your question with respect to 2020-21?

Public Accounts committee  That's a very fair and a very good question. This morning, the International Monetary Fund published a new global outlook. One of the points that it emphasizes in that report—these are its words—is “exceptional uncertainty”. All of these estimates are very difficult to make, given the situation that you are all very familiar with.

Public Accounts committee  Is it possible that I could just finish the sentence?

Public Accounts committee  Okay. As a result of those lockdown activities, that's having an impact, and that will probably lead us to a world of somewhat lower growth than that number would have suggested.

Public Accounts committee  If somebody asks me the question, I'll be happy to answer it.

Public Accounts committee  Well, Nick just said the key word: Our answer is “yes”. If there were more time to elaborate, I'd be happy to elaborate on our thinking around that. However, yes, growth is fundamental to the well-being of Canadians, as you know, and it's fundamental to our ability to manage our debt over time.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Green, if you agree, I'm going to ask my colleague Nick Leswick whether he has an answer to that, or whether that's one of the ones we should take away and come back to you on.

Public Accounts committee  Well, I guess I would make two comments. I agree with what the Auditor General said in terms of the importance of digitizing government services and facilitating access of Canadians to their government on a digital foundation. We have all lived it, and we're living it through the pandemic, so I fully agree with that.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Sorbara, to come back to the point I was making, I think we've seen, through this experience we've all been living, that digitization is something that we have to think about on a pan-Canadian basis across every sector, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses, which are really the backbone of the Canadian economy.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Lawrence, I will take that one. Nick, please jump in if you want to clarify anything I'm about to say. I think this issue has been with us for some time. From the department's perspective, I think, Mr. Lawrence, you're probably aware that with all the respect in the world for the work of the Auditor General and her team, this is an area where I guess I would say the Government of Canada has not fully shared the analysis or the conclusion arrived at by the Auditor General, and that the government does believe it had authority under the Financial Administration Act for that payment.

Public Accounts committee  First, Madam Chair, let me thank Mr. Longfield for his welcome, which is much appreciated on my part. I would also say that welcome is appropriate because I've only been here for about four weeks or so. If you don't mind, I'll ask my colleague, Nick Leswick, to take on that question.