Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'll just give a quick response to the question pertaining to corporate asset sales. With regard to the 2008 statement, you're correct; there were some savings or there were revenues booked on that front. However, in light of the global recession and the impact that had on the f

Finance committee  Doug Nevison from the Department of Finance.

Finance committee  If I may, Mr. Chair, that would obviously be a very significant hit. In the budget documents and the updates of economic and fiscal projections, we always include a sensitivity analysis for a number of variables, and their effect on the budgetary balance. One, at the back end o

Finance committee  Increase in the interest rate? Effective interest rate?

Finance committee  You would see a deterioration in the budgetary balance of $800 million.

Finance committee  That's in the first year. It would build to $2.3 billion by the fifth year. So it would have a dynamic effect.

Finance committee  Right now, on public debt charges in 2010-11 we have paid roughly $30 billion.

Finance committee  Thirty billion dollars in public debt charges.

Finance committee  The effective interest rate on that depends. The interest rates that we use when we do these projections are based on the private sector forecast. The short-term rate that was used for that was just below one percentage point, and the 10-year bond yield that we use for that forec

Finance committee  Ten percent would be historically, as you said, very high.

Finance committee  My arithmetic is very poor, but that would be a big number.

Finance committee  Well, as I said, if you went by 10 percentage points, it would be about $20 billion over a five-year period.

Finance committee  Yes, I think the Minister of Finance has been quite clear that having stable and low debt levels is very beneficial to the Canadian economy.

Finance committee  Well, to reduce the debt level, to start paying down debt again, we actually have to get back to a budgetary balance at some point. Growing the economy, obviously, helps in managing that burden, but in terms of paying debt down again, you have to get back to a budgetary balance,

Finance committee  Growth is very important. Obviously, debt-to-GDP has a denominator and numerator, and growth is affecting the denominator. So it's very important.