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Results: 1 - 15 of 19
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, Mr. Minister.
My regards also to the officials with you today.
Mr. Duclos, you are the President of the Treasury Board, as well as an economist. In the document that I am about to show you, you will see figure 1, dealing with the composition of expenditures in the Main Estimates 2021-2022. You will see a green circle, indicating the cost of servicing the debt.
This year's budget shows $21 billion for servicing the debt.
Does that concern you?
View Jean-Yves Duclos Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus, and all my colleagues on the committee.
I am indeed an economist by training and I am also President of the Treasury Board. As such, my responsibility is to ensure that the Government of Canada's funds and efforts are directed to where the pandemic makes it important.
As an economist, I also understand, as do many others, that, if we had not invested quickly and massively to support Canadians and their companies, the result would have been terrible. We would have found ourselves not only in an extraordinary economic crisis, but also in a social crisis…
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Duclos, you know that I do not have a lot of time.
I want to know whether it concerns you. I especially want to know whether you have assessed the impact that a 1% increase in the interest rate could have on Canada's finances.
View Jean-Yves Duclos Profile
Lib. (QC)
We know two things about that.
First, the interest to GDP ratio in Canada is the lowest it has been for almost a century.
Second, our financial and budgetary conditions are among the most enviable in the developed countries. It is important…
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
So your answer is that you are not concerned about the medium-term impact of a possible rise in interest rates for Canada and its taxpayers.
As the parliamentary budget officer has indicated, an increase of only 1% would have impacts on society as a whole and on all taxpayers.
Does that concern you?
View Jean-Yves Duclos Profile
Lib. (QC)
The concern we absolutely must have at the moment is to get out of this crisis as strongly as we can. That is exactly what will allow us to avoid accumulating deficits, which would become greater and last longer. Those deficits would lead us into a fiscal and economic slump that we absolutely want to avoid.
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
When the government talks about economic forecasts and expenditures, it often brings up the argument that interest rates are very low, almost at zero. I find that short-term way of looking at things very troubling because we know that interest rates can go up very quickly. So if we extend the forecast out to five or 10 years, we could be in a bind.
The last time we met, I believe we estimated that, considering COVID-19 only, interest repayments on the deficit for that year would come to about $15 billion per year at current rates. If the rates increased to 2% or 3%, those costs will explode.
Should we take a much more prudent approach in the future? Is it not unwise to continue spending money on the assumption that interest rates are low?
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2021-01-27 18:15
A rise in interest rates is one of the risks we established in our economic and budgetary forecasts. We do not see interest rates rising in the short or medium term. That should not happen before the end of 2023 or 2024. Basically, any rise in interest rates will be modest.
We are never free from turbulence. We saw that in February and March 2020. Unpleasant shocks and surprises can occur. We are not sheltered from a financial shock that could happen elsewhere on the planet and that would cause interest rates to rise. If that did happen, funding the debt would cost much more. But that is not on anyone's radar.
Certainly, a deficit like the one we are forecasting for the current year cannot be repeated for a number of consecutive years without putting the federal government's financial viability into peril or without medium- and long-term financial consequences.
View Majid Jowhari Profile
Lib. (ON)
You mentioned that you perceive that our interest rate is going to stay low some time in 2024 and it's not going to change. When we look at the debt, even at the debt we've accumulated or the investment we have made to make sure our economy holds in the $200-billion to $400-billion range, still at that type of interest rate the servicing of that debt seems to be very low.
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2021-01-27 18:38
You make a good point, so that could be a fiscal anchor in itself. We will ensure that our debt does not exceed a level at which we have to pay more than x per cent of our tax revenues towards interest.
That's why I am saying that if a fiscal anchor is necessary, or is useful at least, the choice of a fiscal anchor is up to the government. Multiple fiscal anchors can be chosen.
To get back to a point you made, if the government spends and incurs additional debt to make the economy more productive, eventually that will reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, other things being equal, because that will lead to more economic growth, which will reduce the relative size of the debt.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
Thanks.
Just for the record, I'll correct Mr. Kusmierczyk's stats. Between 2006 and the Liberals' taking of power, the public service stayed at about the same amount, whereas the previous Liberal government actually cut 14% of the public service.
Mr. Giroux, I want to ask you a question. The finance minister commented in her update that we're locking in low rates by issuing more debt in longer-term instruments. I'm looking at the Bank of Canada website and I see a massive amount of short-term treasury bills being issued, but very little long-term debt.
I'm wondering whether you could comment on that. Are we actually issuing a lot more long-term debt, locking in these low rates?
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2020-12-02 17:39
We are issuing more long-term debt, but not that much more. We can argue about the reasons—whether the government has done the maximum or could do even more—but the issue with long-term maturities is that there's only limited demand for that.
If the government tries to issue all of its debt as 30-year bond maturities, it will probably have to pay significantly higher interest rates, because there's limited demand for these very long maturities. That may explain why the government has not issued only 30-year bonds but has instead gone, for still a majority of its financing, through shorter-term bonds.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
What is our total projected debt when you add the debt owed by our Crown corporations? That's generally not added to the $1.1 trillion being bandied about. Then, if you add pension liabilities and everything else....
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2020-12-02 17:42
The government has updated its debt-management strategy as part of the fall economic statement. They're looking for amendments to the Borrowing Authority Act, pushing the limit, proposing a maximum borrowing amount of $1.8 trillion, if I'm not mistaken: $1,831 billion.
View Patrick Weiler Profile
Lib. (BC)
In that sense, what would be the annual cost of servicing a debt of that magnitude?
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