Finance committee  It is $494.4 billion.

Finance committee  The document shows the impact of changes in interest rates on servicing the debt. An increase of 1% in the interest rates results in a variation in debt service of about $1 billion. So, if the interest rates increase by 1% during one year, there will be a net increase of...

Finance committee  As you know, the budget is showing a surplus of $3 billion, plus $1.4 billion in 2007-2008, and the government undertook to reallocate some resources. For the fall, we are aiming at a permanent amount of $1 billion. There will be other exercises. I do not know what the amount will be for subsequent exercises, but there will be others.

Finance committee  All I can say to you...

Finance committee  I cannot judge what amounts will be deemed satisfactory; we could discuss that for a long time. Nevertheless, there is already a surplus which is not allocated and there will be additional allocations. I cannot determine the amount right now. No one can know what it is. All I know is that there is an exercise under way at present, that there will be a report this fall and that it will continue afterwards.

Finance committee  I would not like to speculate on any amount whatever.

Finance committee  No, I do not speculate.

Finance committee  More or less, if we take the interest rate in effect on the debt, which is about 5.5%, a reduction in the debt of some $8 billion represents a permanent saving of slightly more than $400 million a year.

Finance committee  That is a very good question. However, if you put it to all the people sitting around this table, I am sure that you would get as many answers, if not more, as there are people. I cannot venture to say what the optimum reimbursement or the optimum reduction of the debt is. I can say, though, that the government aims to reduce the debt-equity ratio – which is really the relevant figure in terms of measuring the debt burden – to 25% in 2013-2014.

Finance committee  No, $1 billion.

Finance committee  Yes, it allowed for up to $1.5 billion.

Finance committee  All I'm saying is that the budget shows clear commitments for the next two years. It doesn't go beyond this, with a few exceptions, like the infrastructure programs, where it shows the commitments over the next four years. But for most of the budget commitments, it is clearly a two-year budget horizon.

Finance committee  Well, the budget announced $1 billion of cuts this year and next year, for both years. Treasury Board Secretariat is working on this, and there is a commitment to report by the fall on it. So it is really the Treasury Board that will work on finding the savings that we are talking about here.

Finance committee  All I'm saying is that Treasury Board is working on a plan right now.

Finance committee  Well, we will be informed of what they are doing.