Finance committee  No, no. I mentioned the two governments, but I must say that I had Kathleen Wynne's government in mind. As I also said, the Couillard government has done some good things, but the people of Quebec have also decided that they want better.

Finance committee  That's a very good question. As an economist, I'm aware that some models suggest that if we do this or that with the unemployment rate or the GDP, we'll get re-elected—

Finance committee  —and all of a sudden, it doesn't work. It hasn't worked in British Columbia or Quebec, and I don't know why.

Finance committee  Right. I think it's a risky position. On the surface it looks like the debt-to-GDP ratio.... The federal government's debt-to-GDP ratio is at 40% or 50%. A lot of people look at that and think we're in a good position, but if you look at the overall indebtedness of government in

Finance committee  Perhaps you should address the question across the aisle. The premise is that there are conditions in which deficits are unavoidable—for example, if the economy collapses, like in 2008. Even if you had a balanced budget, you couldn't cut spending fast enough to keep up with the

Finance committee  Very much so. We have to be aware of the competitive environment we're in. For years Canada had lower corporate income taxes than the U.S. We're now at a disadvantage in that. Employers are motivated to look at their total costs. They're going to look at their tax bill, their hy

Finance committee  I think the record shows that when one jurisdiction adopts certain policies it does increase the pressures on others. We've seen that with the increase in minimum wages, for example. I think there are two hopeful reasons when looking at business investment these days. One is th

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Very much so, and the reason is that I don't think people understand that employers have a certain wage bill. We saw this play out with the minimum wage hike in Ontario, and I suspect we will see the same thing play out in Alberta. Employers have a certain wage bill. One of the f

Finance committee  Thank you. I always appreciate the opportunity to address the finance committee, and particularly today I embrace my role as the token economist. I think economists should always address the finance committee. You're going to hear a lot about social policy this morning, which is

Finance committee  I think that's one of the problems with carbon taxes and sales taxes in general. They do tend to be regressive. Low- and medium-income families spend a proportionally larger share of their budget on these energy sources. So it's inevitably going to be regressive.

Finance committee  No, regrettably, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management is not one of the publications I subscribe to.

Finance committee  That's a good point. I hadn't thought of that, but yes, there's going to be a difference by gender too. This is because more men work in the goods-producing industries—manufacturing, oil and gas—that sector is going to be disproportionately affected. So there will be a gender eff

Finance committee  No, sorry, we haven't done any modelling on that. You might be asking the wrong person. I did work 36 years at Statistics Canada. As you mentioned, we have lots and lots of models. I'm not sure I believe any of them. It was the models that got us into.... For example, my skeptici

Finance committee  There's one final thing I'll add about models. We don't have a model of innovation. There was a suggestion here from Stewart that economists understand innovation, and if we play with the price system, add some incentives, and put some inputs in, this output will come out in tech