Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, consumer spending and business investment have been very strong as of late, through the third quarter of the year. As I said, we've had nine consecutive quarters of domestic demand growth, which is quite significant, particularly compared to

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, if I may, the recovery in Canada has been driven by a couple of factors. First off, going into the global recession the Canadian economy had some very strong fundamentals, a very sound banking sector, and budgetary surpluses at the federal level, and most provincial g

Public Accounts committee  A first point would be that the numbers that are presented here for accumulated deficit are for the federal government, and as you said, it was 33.9% of GDP in 2010-11. When international comparisons are done, they tend to be taken on a total government basis, so they bring in al

Public Accounts committee  I'm not sure I got all the questions, but I'll start with the interest-bearing debt. Yes, we've seen a few things on that front in terms of the results. We've seen a higher stock of debt in the last year, and that's a result of the deficits the government has been running during

Public Accounts committee  No. I'm afraid the recommendation to go to the department itself is the right one in this case.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. I would be happy to respond to that. I think I'll just first take a step back and remind members of the economic situation we've been in for the last couple of years. It has been a time of very high economic uncertainty. To be honest, that has made forecasting, both e

Finance committee  The decline in public debt charges of $410 million you refer to between the main estimates and supplementary estimates (B) reflects a decrease in short-term interest rates. As I mentioned before, that is based on the most recent survey of private sector economists. They came down

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.

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.