Public Accounts committee  I'd like to say two things. Managers need oversight. It makes us stronger. You need the sounding board. An effective board of directors is crucial to an institution as significant as ours. I would say that some past liberal practices would probably have been curtailed—in the ancien regime—with more informed oversight.

Public Accounts committee  You look like you're leaning in.

Public Accounts committee  We had a lot of excess capital, and it's an effective discipline on management that management would operate with finite resources. Defining just how much excess capital we have is a problem at the margin when we're a little unsure as to what our capital should be or when the Office of the Auditor General says we haven't gotten it quite right.

Public Accounts committee  In hindsight, it would mean that our premiums were set too high for the economic cycle that in fact occurred, but we set our premiums to adjust for an economic cycle that could be good or bad. We've had strong economic growth that's persisted and no downturn. As a result, looking backward, we've had excess capital.

Public Accounts committee  We won't post the methodology. We debated that. We've gone quite a distance towards publishing our stress testing. It's actually a relatively complicated series of models, which we view to be proprietary. Commercially, we wouldn't publish those. I should tell you that with respect to the payment of dividends, this is a matter that we debate—economic capital methodologies of the board—practically every meeting and certainly every time we pay a dividend.

Public Accounts committee  The answer to that question is no because we will administer that program on behalf of the Government of Canada, and we will not be required to hold capital against it. It'll be a charge against the consolidated revenue fund, so it'll be part of parliamentary appropriation, sir, not a matter for our commercial businesses.

Public Accounts committee  That's correct.

Public Accounts committee  That's correct.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, that's right.

Public Accounts committee  That's right.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, we do. In fact, the spending associated with that program is included in budget 2019, so you can refer to that for that information. It will come from parliamentary appropriations. In fact, because we just completed this reorganization, we were much better set up to drive a client-oriented business.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  The change in 2018 from 220% to 165% was as a result of a change in methodology at OSFI. It's as if accounting rules changed and we had to restate. It's a comparison of apples to oranges and it would be inaccurate to suggest that we decreased our capital. As a result, it's just a different measure.

Public Accounts committee  Not—

Public Accounts committee  Yes, we have.