Finance committee  Yes. I'm saying that if you only include what was included in budget 2006, look at what the surplus is in 2010. If it's not more than $10 billion, then he doesn't have much money left for anything incremental. Between now and 2010 he has to reserve money for a GST cut of over $5 billion; an increase in the basic personal amount from about $9,000 to $10,000, which is going to cost over $2 billion; and the fiscal balance question, which is a very ill-defined concept, but if he doesn't come up with $2 billion to $3 billion incremental money on that issue, there are going to be some disappointed premiers.

Finance committee  I believe I already answered that question when I answered Mr. McCallum. The only thing I would want to add to that would be to emphasize what Ellen Russell said. We're very much on the same wavelength on this one, since sometimes we're not exactly on the same wavelength. It's all very nice to talk about what we should do for productivity, but I warn you to watch the fiscal forecast and to watch very carefully how much money is left in there for the tax cuts that I talked about and recommended and the program changes that I talked about and recommended.

Finance committee  Inflation? The forecast for this year is 2.1%, and for next year it's 1.8%. That's consumer price inflation.

Finance committee  Just about two days ago, I got the forecast from the group called Consensus Economics. It's probably the highest-profile, most widely read group. They surveyed 17 different forecasters in early November and the results came out about two days ago. For 2006 they're forecasting 2.8% growth, and for 2007 it's 2.6%.

Finance committee  Yes, thank you. I pretty much am in agreement with Don. It does have to be a blend. On the tax side, the key thing is that marginal effective tax rate on investment. Trying to line up depreciation rates with useful life is really critical. The reductions in the corporate income tax would be right on target.

Finance committee  I would be really leery about tax reductions for specific sectors. I'd have to think more before I would jump with enthusiasm on that one.

Finance committee  That's fine.

Finance committee  Thank you for inviting me. Bonjour. What I'm going to do is identify some of the specific tax changes that I think you'll be hearing about this afternoon and why I think they may be included in the package and what their impact on the economy might be. I think you're going to see several specific tax changes--in fact, tax changes in most areas.

Industry committee  No problem. So what else can I say? There are, I guess, two things I should say. There still was $10 billion in tax relief, and that's a pretty big number relative to what we've seen from 1993 right up until the economic statement of last year. That's a lot of tax relief relative to what we had seen until the very dying days of the Liberal administration.

Industry committee  Well, thank you very much.

Industry committee  Okay, first I'll go over here and say yes, I remember well when I did work in the Department of Industry and we had to struggle. What do you do when the name of the game internationally is subsidization, as it is in autos and aerospace? It's really a tough issue. Obviously everybody loses when the game is played that way.

Industry committee  On EI, I'm in the process of looking at that issue. It appears to be because we have had good mobility out of Saskatchewan, I don't think the case can be made that the general existence and generosity in policies of the Canadian EI program are a really serious barrier to mobility.

Industry committee  Yes, okay. Let me go on to your other points. With regard to the natural gas industry, the impact of higher prices of natural gas on the Canadian dollar is more important because we have much higher exports of natural gas. In terms of the impact on the economy, it's also very positive when natural gas prices go up since the amount that we use is such a large fraction of what we produce, whereas with oil...and you know, in Quebec a lot of people suffer when gasoline prices go up.

Industry committee  Thank you. Let me start from the beginning, then, and make it very clear. Yes, I can appreciate people's decision to move as an economic, social, cultural decision and everything else. I guess the point here, from the point of view of the policies that I would recommend...I'm not saying people should move, but the issue is, should you ask people elsewhere in Canada to pay the unemployment insurance for people who don't want to move?

Industry committee  Sure. Thank you. Let me respond to a couple of points you made at the beginning about the adaptiveness. I'd just emphasize that a lot of companies have done a better job of adapting in terms of their output and their profitability, and part of that adaptation has involved layoffs.