Public Accounts committee  This is a case where, as you said, it's a very powerful tool for saving for the future. We looked at the impact. In the short term, it was fairly small. We started small but it increases by $5,000 every year. It's cumulative, so potentially the savings and the household advantage grow over time and the fiscal impact too.

Public Accounts committee  In a nutshell, we tend to fully agree with what you've said. You are right on the facts. Effectively, the data we have this year for provinces is that they are in the range of 3% to 4% rate of growth in spending on health care. Their spending has been going down quite significantly in recent years.

Public Accounts committee  I am not familiar with the Parliamentary Budget Officer's analysis. According to the analysis we carried out at the time, if only one of the two spouses earns an income, the gains stemming from income splitting are larger. So fiscal costs are higher. If household composition is stable, the cost will be relatively stable over time.

Public Accounts committee  As we explained in the report, one of the first steps you have to take on the economic side towards sustainable public finances is to ensure that you maximize your potential growth, which means, in turn, ensuring that people participate in the labour market as much as possible and that your productivity is as high as possible.

Public Accounts committee  First, from the point of view of the government, the Government of Canada is not accountable for the provinces, so releasing projections for provinces would be somewhat problematic. They don't own their fiscal situation, and it would be somewhat difficult. Entirely at the Department of Finance, as Nancy was mentioning, we could do analyses based on some assumptions, but we strongly believe that a government should publish their own analyses, defend and support them, and defend the assumptions they've used in these reports.

Public Accounts committee  Sorry, is this question for me?

Public Accounts committee  As explained in the report, we prepare analyses on a regular basis at the department. We knew that the government wanted to publish reports, so we did prepare some reports. Now, as to when these kinds of reports get published, I would say that, effectively, when the global financial crisis happened, our focus changed dramatically and quickly toward the economic action plan and the different phases of it.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you. I want to begin by thanking you for the invitation to appear before this committee to discuss the results of the Auditor General's performance audit on long-term fiscal sustainability presented in his fall 2012 report. With me today also from the Department of Finance is Mr.

Finance committee  Very briefly, in Budget 2011 we closed $4 billion of tax loopholes over five years, which was part of the savings measures we identified in Budget 2011. I don't have the numbers for 2010, but if my memory is not wrong, it was more than that in 2010.

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry, what might....?

Public Accounts committee  I would think that this program was one good example of a fairly effective program in terms of cost benefit. It would be a good example of that. The impact on the account has been fairly minimal, and the benefit for our workers has been fairly large, I believe. I suppose I would say that it's a program that has been more popular than we thought, and it did function very well through the recession.

Public Accounts committee  I couldn't tell you for the average. It was again a personal income tax reduction that was announced in the 2009 budget and it was announced as permanent, so it's a permanent reduction. We explained in the first report that in terms of stimulating the economy, a permanent reduction in taxes, when you can afford it—which was the case in Canada at that time—is way more effective than a temporary reduction; temporary reductions tend to be saved by people because they know they're only temporary.

Public Accounts committee  On the transitional payment to provinces, as you know, we had agreements at the time of the 2010 budget, for sure, and before with B.C. and Ontario to harmonize their sales tax. And we recorded the payments as expected, based on the agreements. At the time of the financial statement, we had discussions with the CG, discussions with the AG, and by then we were advised that all the criteria needed to implement the HST in these provinces were expected.

Public Accounts committee  Well, this is kind of typical in recovery, to have a rebound. In Canada it was a stronger rebound than elsewhere. We have again in our report looked at the impact of the action plan. I do believe in that quarter the impact of the action plan was fairly important. I don't have the number with me, but I think we have explained half of that number.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Chair. It's difficult to go through all these programs. I would just mention maybe one that we have provided information on, I believe in every report we did, which is the work-sharing program. It has been very, very popular. We had about 20,000 Canadians benefiting from that program before the recession.