Government Operations committee  They will undoubtedly have an impact, because the moment you have to use more of your revenues towards servicing the debt, there's lower spending on other things and other priorities—all other things being equal, of course.

Government Operations committee  I'm afraid I'm not the person best placed to indicate to the committee the impacts of previous non-spending decisions on the military.

Government Operations committee  That's a tough question to answer. On the one hand, if the carbon tax were eliminated and not replaced by any measures, Canada's greenhouse gas emissions would probably increase a little more than the current track Canada is on. In addition, it would be perceived as disregard for

Government Operations committee  We expect inflation in Canada will go down to 2% by the end of the calendar year—by the end of 2024—and that over the entire year, it will average 2.4%. We expect the inflation rate for calendar year 2025 to be 1.9%.

Government Operations committee  The Governor of the Bank of Canada probably explained it better than I can when he indicated that government spending—not just federal government spending, but also public spending at large—was not helping the Bank of Canada's fight against inflation. I won't put words in his mou

Government Operations committee  You're absolutely right to say that. We have not yet reached 2%, but based on our forecast, it should be that by the end of the calendar year. You are right.

Government Operations committee  When we release our economic and fiscal outlook and we project the deficit going forward, it's assuming no new fiscal measures, because it would be very difficult to include potential measures. What would we include and how much new spending or tax measures would we assume to be

Government Operations committee  The Minister of Finance indicated she wants the deficit in 2026-27 to be, at most, 1% of GDP. By our estimate, the status quo would suggest it will be at 0.8% of GDP. That suggests there's not that much room for manoeuvring in that fiscal year if the government wants to maintain

Government Operations committee  No, I'm not aware of that particular instance of a reduction in FTEs. What we've seen over time is that the number of FTEs has in fact increased. Personnel spending has also increased. There are obviously isolated cases of reductions in FTEs in specific programs or sectors. How

Government Operations committee  It's a combination of increases in both the number of FTEs and salary or remuneration costs per FTE. In the last numbers I saw, there was an increase of, I think, 18,000 FTEs in the public service, up to 438,000, and the last number I saw was $125,000 and a few hundred dollars in

Government Operations committee  Yes. In fact, there's been a very sharp increase over time in spending for Indigenous Services. If memory serves me well—it's usually not a very good indicator—it went from about $18 billion in 2021-22 and reached $47.5 billion in the current fiscal year of 2023-24. It's a signi

Government Operations committee  Indigenous claims are claims that are made by indigenous groups against the Crown for past wrongdoing. The government has made it clear that it wants to settle as many of these claims as possible, so it's shown an openness to settling some of these claims. As a result, the gover

Government Operations committee  It's an interesting question and one we've been asked quite often. We released our economic and fiscal outlook a couple of weeks ago. Based on what we see on the economic front with economic data, notably with the decrease in global commodity prices, we expect the inflation rate

Government Operations committee  I don't think that we can see prices decreasing. That would mean deflation, which is also very bad. What we could see is probably a slightly slower increase in prices, slower than what is anticipated.

Government Operations committee  I'm not sure the carbon tax and the price on carbon has a significant impact on housing prices. It's mostly related to supply and demand for housing, so I don't see that pausing an increase in the carbon tax would have a significant impact, certainly not a measurable impact, on h