Finance committee  It's difficult for me to answer. We worked collaboratively with the provinces throughout this process. I can't say specifically whether we would have or would not have used any information, but let me go with “no”. While it was a collaborative process, this was analysis that was

Finance committee  May I just consult with a colleague behind me so I can accurately answer the question?

Finance committee  Thank you. It's a model specific to this measure. It doesn't take into consideration the broader suite of other programs that might be more dynamic.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. I want to assure the committee that we did do our due diligence in trying to model the impacts, and as I described to the other member, we do this from an economy-wide, enterprise-wide perspective in trying to understand both the behaviour of firms—not

Finance committee  Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Chair. In the department, we use general equilibrium modelling techniques. In short, they fully characterize the relationships between firms and households in the economy. They look at firms from the perspective of input and output—meani

Government Operations committee  I am supremely apologetic. I'm always available to this committee. However, I do have a child pickup. I will come back at any moment to continue to testify and answer questions from this committee, but I do apologize.

Government Operations committee  My wife is travelling. I apologize.

Government Operations committee  Frankly, our colleagues from the United Kingdom are bang on. We're struggling with how to make these estimates useful, which is the purpose of this discussion. Although public sector accounting standards are different from IFRS, there is this accrual basis as to how we present

Government Operations committee  Simply stated, there would have to be much greater collaboration. This gets into the spirit of the answer I was trying to formulate for Mr. Godin. There would have to be a whole different kind of psyche for the entire government machinery in terms of what comes into the budget pr

Government Operations committee  May I just add one comment, though, on supplementary estimates, just as the committee frames its recommendations and considerations? I know you're talking to the Government of Ontario later this afternoon as well. We do have multiple supplementary estimates in the federal govern

Government Operations committee  The ultimate coherence is the benefit or the ability to table a budget document and an estimate document that are inclusive and linked. Obviously the theory is that we table a budget at the beginning of February, that we table interim supply, and that we roll any new budget item

Government Operations committee  I would like to answer in English.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. I think it's clear that there are definitely advantages in terms of establishing the coherence of the budget and estimates documents. Without a doubt, this lag time between the budget and estimates and how budget initiatives, whether cash or accrual, eventually find t

Government Operations committee  It's difficult to answer that directly, because I think we'd actually seriously have to consider what machinery changes we're talking about. I know that the President of the Treasury Board will bring forward options to potentially delay the tabling of the main estimates, which

Government Operations committee  It's difficult to say. Again, it depends on the machinery change we're talking about. I think the system is nimble enough to start to establish more discipline up front so that when new programs and initiatives are brought into the budget process, they have some sort of substan