Government Operations committee  Yes, I would be inclined to say that, to some extent.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Sousa, that's a question for policy-makers and legislators.

Government Operations committee  As an economist, I believe that externalities should be internalized, so those who cause negative consequences for society should be the ones who assume these costs, as opposed to pricing—

Government Operations committee  As I said to this committee last week, there is a wide consensus among economists—and I am an economist—that carbon pricing is an effective way of reducing carbon emissions. Any other way of doing it will also have costs. I've been clear about that, and my office has been clear a

Government Operations committee  The question is quite valid, but it is something we have not looked at specifically. We have done work on the carbon fuel charge, the carbon tax, but we have not looked in detail at the impact of the fuel charge on food inflation. However, as referred to a couple of times in this

Government Operations committee  Inflation as defined by Statistics Canada refers to the price evolution of a basket of goods and services that is representative of what a typical household will buy.

Government Operations committee  It is changing, as is the basket of goods and services they need or purchase, on average. That's based on surveys and consumption patterns, so Statistics Canada is probably better placed to answer how they design their basket of goods and services.

Government Operations committee  It is probably millions. I don't have that note in front of me. The Senate proposed several amendments to this bill and it has been referred to a couple of times, so forgive me if I don't know all the details and can't remember them off the top of my head. What I remember is that

Government Operations committee  My understanding is that farmers are eligible to get back the GST they paid as input tax credits. Also, our analysis for households includes the carbon tax they pay directly and indirectly as well as the GST that's applied to the carbon tax directly and indirectly.

Government Operations committee  Yes, but I would assume that the impact of the carbon tax on the price of food is probably not significant, even though there have been increases in the price of food. Not all of it—only a fraction of it—can be attributed to the carbon tax.

Government Operations committee  We issued a report on the federal government's housing investments. I believe we also considered the need for water and wastewater systems in first nations communities a few years ago. That said, I'm not sure we've reported specifically on first nations housing. I can provide yo

Government Operations committee  We didn't assess the amounts to see if the contracts awarded externally were good value for taxpayers. What we did find, however, was that spending on external consultants has steadily increased significantly in recent years. Many of these consultants provide services, for exampl

Government Operations committee  I wouldn't go so far as to say that cases like ArriveCAN are widely being repeated everywhere. The questions that arise the most concern the use of consultants to provide policy or management advice to the public service, when there is the expertise within the public service to

Government Operations committee  We don't have that figure either. We may have done the calculations as part of another query. However, we can see that amounts for seniors' benefits will increase by almost $9 billion from 2021‑2022 to 2022‑2023, the year in which eligibility for those aged 75 and over was expan

Government Operations committee  That is a somewhat sensitive question to answer in absolute terms. From a historical perspective, during the 1990s, debt service costs were eating up roughly a third of federal revenues, if not more. That was an alarming situation. It's much less so now, given that it represents