Finance committee  Yes, we do that, in fact. What we do is we make sure that we follow the legislation so whatever premium rate we put in there would actually ensure that the account would be balanced over that seven-year period, which is in the legislation.

Finance committee  Normally in a dynamic labour market there is always a mismatch of skills. That's why the unemployment rate actually never goes down to zero, because there's always that kind of mismatch in the labour market. New people come in and new jobs are created, so part of that is normal.

Finance committee  There are a couple of issues here. The way the projection is done normally, because we always look at the potential output as a sort of driving force for the economy because everything, in our view, has to go back to that.... Part of that is the economy cannot really operate abov

Finance committee  Absolutely. If you look at the long term, based on our estimates, we have room of about 1.3% of GDP, about $25 billion, which the government can actually increase spending or reduce taxes without raising the level of debt-to-GDP ratio. The statement that we have in the report is

Finance committee  If I may, I will answer this in English. We have looked at the current rate, which is 1.88% and which the government has frozen for three years, but that creates a surplus in the account, which, based on the rules and the regulations that actually were introduced by the governm

Finance committee  In fact, on the issue that we have with that, if that rate could have been dropped much sooner without really creating any further deficit in the account—so a drop in the rate sooner—it would have actually provided that savings to Canadians without really creating any deficit in

Finance committee  Certainly. The Canadian dollar has a very important role to play, given that it impacts both our exports and our imports because it determines the cost of imports. One way or another, there has to be a rate at which it optimizes the impact on the Canadian economy. Nobody really

Finance committee  You are absolutely right. At the moment, the main estimates are not very useful in examining the government's financial situation because of the different accounting systems. Two years ago, we advised the parliamentary committee to change the system in the main estimates and we

Finance committee  I'm glad you asked for a clarification. I think what I said was not that the exports do not make any contribution to the Canadian economy, but that exports did not make any contribution to growth in GDP since 2000. That's a completely different issue.

Finance committee  Scott, do you want to talk about that?

Finance committee  I can get into trouble by answering that question, sir.

Finance committee  I don't think I can make any comment. Again, it's a policy sort of question that we normally do not make any comments on.

Finance committee  That's right.

Finance committee  We do not have an official legal opinion. We have done some legal analysis. Jean-Denis may want to comment.

Finance committee  Yes, based on a sustainability analysis. Yes.