Public Accounts committee  They have not been reduced; they have been kept unchanged. They have been frozen throughout the recession. At one point, they spent $100 per—

Public Accounts committee  Are you referring to the EI benefit, the account itself, or the freezing of the rates?

Public Accounts committee  The account was created that year, so the old deficit has led to an increase in the overall deficit of the government. The way the board has been set up, the maximum increase in the rate that would have been possible was 15¢. That's why there's a cap on the increase in rates. If the board didn't follow the rules, they would have increased the premium by 15¢ to offset the increase in benefits, ensuring that the accounts would not have gone so deeply into deficit.

Public Accounts committee  The impact has been important. The global recession has been fairly large. It affected the U.S. significantly. This is our main trading partner. The first channel of impact was through exports. Our exports went down significantly. It also affected confidence in Canada. In October of 2008 we saw a huge and sudden drop in confidence.

Public Accounts committee  When we put the plan together, the first objective was to stop the reduction in confidence in Canada, to try to stabilize the system, and to instill more confidence in the economy, for both consumption and investment. This was our first goal. In addition to directly stimulating the economy through the package we put together, we directly affected the economy through infrastructure spending and tax cuts.

Public Accounts committee  I’m very happy to be here, and I’m available to answer your questions.

Public Accounts committee  [Inaudible—Editor], unfortunately.

Public Accounts committee  We cannot give you a direct answer to your question; no one can. Coming back to the construction sector, and in order to give you some more information on the number of jobs created and maintained, I would say that the decrease in employment in the construction sector was quite marked during the last recession in the 1990s.

Public Accounts committee  As I said, in the report, you have the amounts spent for fiscal year 2009-2010. That gives you the starting point. You also have the amounts committed for the current year. There is no other information for the following years. However, it is true that the amounts committed were spread over five years for some projects, like the Green Infrastructure Fund.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. Everything you mentioned—broadband, Green Infrastructure Fund, small communities and CFI—is in the economic action plan. It is all underway. You will find it in the “Sixth Report to Canadians”. You won't find all of the projects in the same place, but in the chapter entitled “Creating the Economy of Tomorrow” you will find a number of them.