Finance committee  With respect to household indebtedness, it's clear that one of the main factors is the relatively low level of interest rates, which of course encourages people to take on more debt. Another big factor contributing to high levels of debt is the relatively high price of housing. W

Finance committee  When you look only at the federal debt-to-GDP ratio, it's quite low compared to international partners. However, if you want to compare things that are comparable, for example, the U.K. is a unitary state, so if you look only at the federal level, we obviously look advantaged. A

Finance committee  Yes. After the decline in business investments throughout 2017 to 2019, we expect that business investments will rebound, in good part because of the increase in oil prices in Canada and also abroad, but also because of the tax changes introduced in the fall economic statement. B

Finance committee  It's an issue we have not directly looked at as part of our economic and fiscal outlook, but Chris and Jason may want to expand a bit on it.

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and ladies and gentlemen members of the committee. Thank you for your invitation to appear before you to discuss our financial and economic perspectives from April 2019, which were published earlier today. As you know, the Parliamentary Budget Off

Transport committee  That would be of great interest to many people, but that is something I think would be premature try to estimate while the projects are still being completed. Indeed, some of them are just starting to be completed. Given the long time horizon of several of the infrastructure prog

Transport committee  It is not just a good idea, it is key. There should be a cost-benefit analysis for every project. When we ask people about their objectives and performance measurement strategies, we do not get many answers. A great deal of weight is given to the financing criteria and funds dis

Transport committee  We have a good relationship with the people at Infrastructure Canada. I believe that the department does everything it can to help us. Some other departments are responsible for smaller projects, in keeping with their total budget, and for which there may be less interest. Howev

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  That may be better answered by Infrastructure Canada, as you'd probably get a more accurate answer from them because of the multiplicity of programs, each with its own terms and conditions. I know, generally speaking, how it works, but I'm sure if I give an answer, somebody will

Transport committee  Thank you.

Transport committee  Somebody said it's all over the place, and when you look at the infrastructure programs, there are so many that one can easily get the impression that they're all over the place. There's a program for virtually everything. Looking at the database of projects being funded, there i

Transport committee  I'm sure there's an opportunity to propose such a program, but the decision as to whether this program, or the program you suggested, would be in the best interest, or align with the government's priorities, is up to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, or the Minister of

Transport committee  I think there are probably two things the government wants to accomplish. It's saying that it wants to stimulate the economy and have long-term growth, but at the same time it also wants to help municipalities and provinces fund infrastructure programs. I'm not sure it's doing bo

Transport committee  On the estimates we have come up with in our report for increases in GDP and the number of jobs, if you do simple math and divide the number of jobs created by the investments in infrastructure, it comes up to a very expensive per job cost. The immediate stimulative effect is not