Public Accounts committee  Chair, I would ask the member to give me those numbers again, please.

Public Accounts committee  Go ahead, Nick.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, I think that's....

Public Accounts committee  There's no one I know who has mastered that better than Nick Keswick, so over to you, Nick.

Public Accounts committee  Is it the question on the gross?

Public Accounts committee  Chair, I'm going to give you a double-barrelled answer. First, I'll just comment on the numbers and then I'm going to turn to my colleague, Nick Keswick, who is—

Public Accounts committee  All right. We'll suspend the tutorial from Nick on how these international adjustments are made. Mr. Chair, even if you look at this on a gross basis, Canada ranks either second or third in the G7.

Public Accounts committee  Whether net or gross, the position of Canada is quite strong on a global basis.

Public Accounts committee  Chair, in an answer to a previous question, I think the two most important aspects of that are, first, the significant reduction by about a couple of hundred billion dollars in our borrowing requirements that's gone on. That's obviously important and reflects a stronger economic recovery, therefore significant changes, strengthening of the deficit track of the government.

Public Accounts committee  Chair, on these calculations that are done by the IMF, they have to make a number of adjustments to try to make each country comparable to the other. One of the things—

Public Accounts committee  Take Norway—

Public Accounts committee  You should talk to my colleagues in the department. They don't buy that.

Public Accounts committee  No, but it's a country that in many ways is comparable to Canada, and I just want to give you the example of the Norwegian sovereign fund—Norges Bank. Because of the magnitude of that fund, which is well in excess of a trillion dollars, that has a huge impact on the debt position of Norway as it's evaluated by the IMF.

Public Accounts committee  That change in the methodology that's applied by the IMF is applied consistently across countries, so all countries that have similarly structured...for instance, pension plans that are to be reported comparably—

Public Accounts committee  We are working as quickly as possible.