Finance committee  Correct, sir.

Finance committee  Sir, on that point, when the government introduced the measures it did in its 2009 budget, when they introduced tax reduction measures, those were instituted. There was a ways and means motion. They were implemented. Canadians will benefit by those sorts of sales. We know exactly what they're doing.

Finance committee  That's correct, first quarter.

Finance committee  Chris, do you have Don's number? He's more pessimistic.

Finance committee  Absolutely. I think our comments and the comments of the IMF are similar with respect to the stimulus nature of the package that was put forward. Again, I think the IMF report was a very glowing report on Canada's situation relative to other countries. What we also see in the IMF report as well, though, and again in a global context, is that the global economy is much weaker and the U.S. economy is much weaker.

Finance committee  It's certainly our mandate to present this sort of economic and fiscal information before you, based on averages of private sector forecasts, and what it means fiscally. That's basically, for the most part, what we're doing. We do talk about risk. From a policy perspective, in terms of bolstering consumer confidence, what we're hearing as well from the International Monetary Fund, I think, is that we're going to need to deal with this global financial system before our confidence will truly come back in a sustained way.

Finance committee  We've examined and have written a report on issues coming out of the November economic statement from Minister Flaherty. In words that we've actually printed and that are available on our website and as well in direct discussions that we've had with departmental officials, we've said that it's not a good practice to adjust the fiscal framework for the hypothetical sorts of situations that, at a minimum....

Finance committee  We need a list, but I would think, based on what we know now and just from the nature of disposition, that it doesn't sound very realistic. There is a high risk that it would be hard for it to materialize.

Finance committee  Like the Department of Finance, we survey private sector forecasts and we do our own survey. We make this information available to you so you can see the broader planning context. We're not in the forecasting game itself. We do this so you can think about it in terms of budgetary measures, the stimulus, as Mr.

Finance committee  Yes, sir, absolutely. If you look at the International Monetary Fund and its projections, this is definitely a global recession. They call it “the Great Recession”. It's unprecedented, and we're seeing the world economy decline in real terms on a year-to-year basis. As Paul Krugman says, this is a situation where sometimes bad things happen to a good economy, and Canada is a good economy.

Finance committee  Perhaps one aspect of our mandate has to be clarified. I'm not very comfortable proposing new options or policies in the context of a future budget or determining whether we need other measures. However, I am comfortable outlining the economic context. On page 13 of our brief, there is a chart showing our output gap.

Finance committee  It is absolutely necessary to implement budget measures as soon as possible and to stimulate the economy in this context. However, I am not very comfortable proposing other measures.

Finance committee  It's probably fair to say that the budgetary process in the United States is a lot more complicated than ours. Many people were probably watching American news last night, and they got to see the President talk about the importance of implementing their budget. In our sense, because of the work of all parliamentarians, we're actually further down the road than the U.S.

Finance committee  Actually, no, it's not. The average number of nominal GDP, I think, is a 4.4% decline for 2009—isn't it, Chris?

Finance committee  No, we have not. It would not be hard to do, however.