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

Government Operations committee  To give you an order of magnitude, we estimate that there is about $21 billion in contracting out. That includes, obviously, consultant fees and consultant services, but it also includes assistance or professional services that are not available in the public service. For example

Government Operations committee  Sure.

Government Operations committee  In looking at what you've laid out in terms of categories, I'd say the vast majority are probably what one would describe as “hard tasks”—for example, the expertise the public service doesn't have, or services that are needed to contract out to provide health services to remote f

Government Operations committee  The management consulting, or the consulting services.... We did a report that indicated the broad categories. I don't remember it off the top of my head, but what I remember is that it was about 10% of the overall total—maybe less. For the pure middleman, there was no such cate

Government Operations committee  I wouldn't bet my salary on the $2.1 billion. That's from memory. The pure middleman is anybody's guess.

Government Operations committee  There should be no change, because our analysis already includes the GST paid on the carbon tax, the tax on tax. We already include the 5% GST in our analysis.

Government Operations committee  This is obviously something that irritates consumers a great deal. Quebec residents experienced it until a few years ago, when the Quebec sales tax was calculated on an amount that already included the federal goods and services tax. This is something that irritates people a grea

Government Operations committee  We'll probably have to get back to you on that question, because although we have the supplementary estimates here, we don't have the overall government spending for the year 2023-24, and certainly not by that level of detail, program by program. I would think there's more to i

Government Operations committee  I think the pandemic played a part, because the government made some policy decisions to suspend some repayments during the pandemic, but there's also an inherent volatility in decisions to write off, because it depends on recovery activity and repayment and how certain economic

Government Operations committee  Frozen allotments are amounts that have been approved by Parliament but that the Treasury Board—as a group of ministers—has decided to freeze so that departments cannot access them. You can freeze these amounts for a variety of reasons—waiting for certain conditions to be met, fo

Government Operations committee  I don't get forewarnings. However, we can ask for details from the Treasury Board Secretariat as to the amounts that are being frozen or reprofiled. We can, if we want, get into the weeds as to exactly what's being reprofiled. To the first part of your question on whether that's

Government Operations committee  I have a proportion of the overall revenues that interest on debt represents. It's about seven-point-something per cent. I don't have the exact number in front of me. It will be rising to about 10% over the next few years. That's been increasing. Before the pandemic, it was sli