Public Accounts committee  Just as a point of clarification right at the beginning, the tax receivable number largely reflects the fact that as of March 31, we had received in cash a certain amount of money. But there was another amount that was in fact calculated and verified in June that showed that the

Public Accounts committee  I believe so.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  Department of Finance projections.

Public Accounts committee  First of all, I think that once again, we need to start by making a distinction. The type of errors and adjustments Ms. Fraser was referring to are really adjustments that are highlighted when the current year is finalized. These are not errors linked to forecasts as such. Secon

Public Accounts committee  The government in fact issues a debt strategy, which was an annex to the last budget. But to go to your question, by and large, the manner in which the government pays down debt is not to renew maturing bonds and treasury bills. There are bond buybacks, but those are more to---

Public Accounts committee  We could provide an estimate of taxes paid by income cohort.

Public Accounts committee  The cost of the GST reduction is $6 billion in 2008-09.

Public Accounts committee  I don't have the numbers with me, but again, we can provide them to you. The other dimension to the GST cut that I would flag is that there is a low-income GST credit, which was designed to offset the cost of GST payments for low-income Canadians. When the GST rate was reduced i

Public Accounts committee  We absolutely can give you information on GST paid by income cohort.

Public Accounts committee  The surplus in the EI account in 2006-07 was roughly $1 billion, if one excludes interest earnings on the account. That reflects significantly stronger labour markets than were expected at the time the rate was set. For example, in September 2006, which was the basis for the 2007

Public Accounts committee  We don't have an estimate of that. In fact, one could only calculate the amount based on detailed revenue data that becomes available more or less two years after the fact.

Public Accounts committee  This is the value of our foreign currency holdings that are converted into Canadian dollars. Therefore, for unchanged currency holdings, when the Canadian dollar appreciates, the value in Canadian dollars goes down, and that's what you're seeing.

Public Accounts committee  What we're looking at is the value of our foreign-denominated currency expressed in Canadian dollars. Therefore, when the currency appreciates, the Canadian dollar value goes down.

Public Accounts committee  That's correct. The public sector pension plan and the CPP plan are integrated. Therefore, when a public servant receives this CPP contribution, there is actually only one cheque, but the way that's effected is that the public sector portion is reduced to reflect the CPP benefit.