Finance committee  It was $90 million per year.

Finance committee  I'm sorry, for clarity, the adjustment supplementary estimates reconciles the main from 2006-07 to what was actually spent, just as in this year, in part because of the budget, and we can go through in detail what the impacts of the budget are. There will be some changes in the s

Finance committee  But I can assure you that at this stage the vast bulk of changes, 99%, will be because of the measures to restore fiscal balance that were included in budget 2007, so obviously this committee reviews that.

Finance committee  My opening comments referenced the fact that FINTRAC has already appeared before this committee and that we were going to focus on the budget of the department. We'll go back to FINTRAC and get you an answer, Mr. Wallace.

Finance committee  Just on the $76-odd billion of the department.

Finance committee  It's part of debt management strategy, and the minister does table that each year.

Finance committee  We can--

Finance committee  There is a policy. We make adjustments to that. It is part of the debt management strategy. I'll give you one example. This year we increased the amount of inflation-indexed bonds the government's issuing because they're trading at a substantial premium right now, and there's no

Finance committee  Maturity?

Finance committee  It's a very good question. It's a topical issue. We look at it regularly, but the important consideration here is that the federal debt is like a supertanker: it's very hard to move rapidly. That's part of the reason. We have done substantial analysis showing that the benefit o

Finance committee  A number of crown corporations, not all, had effectively issued on their own behalf. They were guaranteed by the Government of Canada and they issued at a slight premium to the Government of Canada, so it's slightly more expensive, 25 to 50 basis points. We're going to bring that

Finance committee  Thank you. I have a point of fact, if I may, on the performance of income trusts. One has to add in the distribution of trusts. Since trusts yield 9%, 10%, that 6% is just a capital number. One would add that back in for making a comparative number, and obviously stocks don't.

Finance committee  On the tax revenue point, as I referenced earlier, there were $9 billion worth of private equity buyouts last year on the $2 trillion market, compared to a $200 trillion total trust market capitalization at that time, so the orders of magnitude here are substantially different.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  The funding follows, and there are some efficiencies, yes.