Government Operations committee  Indeed one of my top worries is what the requests will be and the number and nature of the requests with respect to electoral platform costing. We've had preliminary discussions with representatives of the political parties represented in the House. Indications are that a good proportion of them will be requiring our services when it comes to electoral platform costing.

Government Operations committee  Yes, we have what we call an annual work plan, in which we outline the main issues we'll be looking at, the main reports we will be issuing, and that's as close to a departmental plan as you can have, our annual work plan.

Government Operations committee  Access to information, I think, will continue to be an issue.

Government Operations committee  If they say no, I can name and shame them, and I think that's probably the most efficient dissuasion. In my experience, all public servants hate being dragged in front of a committee, so naming and shaming them and threatening that they'll be required to testify in front of a committee is sufficient in most cases to allow them to provide me with the information, if they can.

Government Operations committee  Yes, that is true both at the aggregate government level and at the federal-only level. Both are sustainable over the 75-year period that we looked at.

Government Operations committee  That's a very interesting question. I was not prepared to answer questions on the FSR, but given that it's relatively—

Government Operations committee  —fresh in my mind, I'll give it a try.

Government Operations committee  The size of the debt itself, in absolute terms, is not very meaningful. It has to be looked at in relation to the size of the economy. That's why in the fiscal sustainability report we look at the debt-to-GDP ratio. A growing debt could be very worrisome if the economy is shrinking, or it could be not that big a deal if the economy is expanding at a fabulously high rate.

Government Operations committee  Thank you.

Government Operations committee  That's an interesting question. I asked my predecessor that question about the role of the PBO. I asked him how parliamentarians felt when he, Jean-Denis, appeared in the media. Did they dislike that? He told me spontaneously that parliamentarians tend to like it, because it gives credibility to an institution.

Government Operations committee  The real return bond rates don't necessarily move up and down with the nominal interest rate. That's why it's attractive, because it tends to be much smoother and lower than nominal interest rates because it removes the inflation component, so it would not necessarily move up and down with the swinging nominal interest rates.

Government Operations committee  The rate of return traditionally tends to be higher if you have an active management strategy because of risk taking. However, for a pension plan that's as big and that has such a long-term perspective, personally I believe it's appropriate to be a bit more aggressive than passive to ensure that it has as high a rate of return as possible while maintaining an acceptable level of risk.

Government Operations committee  That's a very specific question. I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer that question at this stage in my mandate.

Government Operations committee  I'm not aware of a significant improvement. There might have been some anecdotal improvements for some specific proposals.

Government Operations committee  I think the best way to speed up the approval process and to improve the oversight would be to have a budget that is, to be honest, much earlier in the process. It's very difficult to do anything that's meaningful and significant when you have a budget that can be tabled at virtually any time of the year.