Finance committee  Thank you for the statement. Yes, I can confirm that.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. I'll take a shot at it. You're exactly right. The labour market recovery has exceeded expectations on all sorts of labour market metrics, whether it be employment creation, hours worked or participation rate. We're completely outperforming where we thought we'd be six or 12 months ago.

Finance committee  That's correct.

Finance committee  I think that would be in the ballpark. I don't want to verify that specifically, but let's say it's 6% to 8%.

Finance committee  I'll agree, just based on.... I don't have a calculator in front of me, but based on—

Finance committee  Correct.

Finance committee  Correct, yes. That's right.

Finance committee  I certainly follow your line of questioning. I can't offer the—

Finance committee  That's exactly right. We extended the term to maturity of the entire debt stock. To execute that, we issued more bonds at the longer end so there are more 10-year, 30-year and even the ultra-long bonds to extend that maturity structure of the debt.

Finance committee  Right. Interest charges are one portion of what the government spends money on, and the lower those are, I guess, the greater the availability to spend money on other things.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. I'm happy to do that at a high-level, in broad terms. Over the course of the pandemic, it was necessary for the government to issue a lot of debt to fund COVID emergency response programs and to fill in gaps from the interruption of revenues over the course of the pandemic and, obviously, the economic contraction through 2020 and into 2021.

Finance committee  Yes. Those are the principles. We're cautious as well. We're trying to find that sweet spot between managing the cost and risk dynamics. There is a rollover risk dynamic that I think you're referencing, and then just the actual cost structure as well. Obviously, when you borrow shorter, it's cheaper, and when you borrow longer, it's more expensive.

Finance committee  Obviously, if you aim to lower public debt charges, if you think your base case is a perfect prediction of the future.... Economists including me have never been all that great at predicting the future path of interest rates, so I'm cautious about being too dogmatic on anything I say in this regard.

Finance committee  Thank you. I think that's a great approach, and we'll come back very quickly with an itemized list in accordance with the framework the member outlined.

Finance committee  I don't believe they were in the ways and means motion, but I'd have to verify that for you, Mr. Member.