Government Operations committee  Apparently the current situation makes it very difficult for departmental officials to provide us with the information.

Government Operations committee  That's a very good question. Unfortunately, we don't know yet why the uptake in the wage subsidy is so much lower than the government and we originally estimated. It could well be that it's more beneficial for some businesses to just lay off their workers and benefit from the wage subsidy until they can resume their operations to full capacity, but we don't know that yet for sure.

Government Operations committee  We asked the department for updated information, and we did not get it. As you mentioned, we were hoping to release a report by the end of May, but we haven't received the information we were hoping to get, so we have to postpone that.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  We were supposed to get the information on time to provide parliamentarians with an update on “Strong, Secure, Engaged”. May was the target date for us, but we didn't get the information on time.

Government Operations committee  We were told that it would be delayed by a couple of weeks, but we have not received it yet.

Government Operations committee  That's a question that the government would be in a good position to answer. For example, in the need to return to more sustainable spending, if the government decides to cut some aspects of government operations and targets defence spending, then it could put in jeopardy “Strong, Secure, Engaged” spending, or DND spending more generally.

Government Operations committee  Mr. McCauley, it's not that easy to explain the gap for now because data is still coming in, and people were strongly encouraged to apply for the CERB. We know, for example, that Statistics Canada is incurring difficulties that were not anticipated due to the unusual circumstances.

Government Operations committee  We have not revised our estimate recently. We revised our estimate after the emergency wage benefit was announced, but we haven't updated our estimate since. With the coming into force of the wage benefit, we were expecting a slightly lower take-up of the CERB, which has not happened.

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. It's our first virtual appearance before this committee. We are pleased to be here today to discuss our recent COVID-19 economic and fiscal analysis. With me today I have Mark Mahabir, director of policy, costing.

Finance committee  It's possible, yes, realistic, yes. Certainly, it's not unthinkable.

Finance committee  I'll address the second part of your question: interest rates rising. When I say I don't anticipate interest rates to rise, it's in the context of the scenario we released, which only looks as far as the end of 2020, the current calendar or fiscal year. In that short period of time, we don't anticipate interest rates to rise, at least not significantly.

Finance committee  Thanks, Madam May. That's a very interesting question, and the answer is not straightforward. The impact of stopping the stimulus will depend on the strength of the recovery and the speed of the recovery. If the recovery is strong and the engine is full speed ahead, then the impact of withdrawing economic support or stimulus would probably be minimal.

Finance committee  We do that and we did that for the delay in remitting taxes that the government has offered to individuals and businesses. You look at the cost of borrowing. The government provides funding to businesses, so the government itself has to borrow that money or borrow more than it otherwise would.

Finance committee  Mr. Julian, I have disappointing answers to both of your questions. It's, no, we haven't looked at providing an update to the construction costs of Trans Mountain, and we haven't looked at the cost of climate change. That being said, over the next several weeks we will be releasing an update on Canada meeting—or not—its Paris targets.