Finance committee  To my mind, yes, the art of making forecasts is indeed a social science. It is true that we use equations and models to develop our forecasts. We prepare these projections, again, not to say that at the end of the year we're going to provide a more accurate projection than someb

Finance committee  We are here to serve.

Finance committee  Again, the question that you will probably have for Mr. Carney will be what will be the relative impact of the monetary stimulus that's been put into the economy relative to his actions that have taken place in 2008? As well, I think, in that assumption he was probably assuming,

Finance committee  Sir, is this the chart on corporate tax revenues?

Finance committee  Sir, maybe I'll do just a quick background on what this graph actually shows. What this graph measures, effectively, is the difference between what we call “potential output growth“ and “actual growth”. Potential growth is a number that the Department of Finance and the Bank of C

Finance committee  Thank you, sir. In terms of the fundamentals we would be looking at that are behind that statement and that actually provide reason for optimism, actually, in terms of going forward, and which I think the current government and the previous government should take credit for, we

Finance committee  No, that is our position, based, again, on economic projections from international organizations.

Finance committee  We take averages, and also to help enhance understanding, we'll also look at ranges for you, sir. We'll take the lowest and highest as well.

Finance committee  We will provide you a projection and a fiscal response based on an average projection, and we also give you the lows and the highs, sir.

Finance committee  A 30-second answer, sir, is that monetary policy plays a huge role in terms of providing stimulus. We are in a very different period of time from what we have been in the past. We're looking at historic policy rates from our central bank in Canada and other parts of the world.

Finance committee  We provide financial analysis on policy proposals, sir. We'll stay away from.... We'll let you folks decide on—

Finance committee  Right now, the bank is forecasting a decline in 2009 of about 1.2%. That's in real GDP terms, sir. They're forecasting a relatively strong growth in 2010 of about 3.8%, again in real GDP terms. The 1.2% decline is kind of in our band of private sector forecasts for 2009.

Finance committee  The 1.2% decline, sir. Basically, he has a fairly sharp decline built in for the fourth quarter of 2008 and then significant declines in the first quarter and second quarter, with, as you say, sir, a relatively healthy pickup starting in the second half of this year and then rea

Finance committee  That's the right question, actually, and it's probably best put to Mr. Carney and the Bank of Canada as to why he thinks the stimulus will be so much stronger. There's no question—

Finance committee  I think, sir, the work done by the International Monetary Fund, and also by some academics in the United States in looking at previous recession experiences, where you've had asset price bubbles in the housing sector and in the stock markets, followed by a credit crunch, kind of