Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today.

First, I'd like to say a few words about the office's work on carbon pricing.

In April of this year, in the course of reviewing and updating our computable general equilibrium or CGE model, PBO staff discovered that the original CGE simulations underlying our March 2022 distributional analysis of carbon pricing inadvertently included the economic impact of both the federal equivalent fuel charge and the output-based pricing system. CGE estimates from these simulations were published in our March 2022 report, table 3-1, and were also used in the update to that report that we published in March 2023.

Weeks ago, on April 17, we published a notification flagging this modelling issue. It appeared on the home page of our website. The notification also indicated that we plan to provide an updated analysis of carbon pricing by the fall of this year.

I am truly sorry for this modelling error and for not providing more prominent notification to parliamentarians.

PBO staff are working diligently to prepare this update to incorporate recent policy changes, new projections and new CGE modelling. This analysis is challenging and complex, involving multiple models, programs and databases. We will publish updated analysis when we have full confidence in our results.

Further, going forward, I will ensure that parliamentarians are provided with more prominent notification should similar issues arise.

I would now like to discuss the reason for our appearance today, which is Bill C-69, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 16, 2024.

I am joined today by Chris Matier and Mark Mahabir, directors general in my office.

On April 30, my office published an analysis including highlights of Budget 2024. In that budget, the government announced $61.2 billion in new spending that was partially offset by $21.9 billion in revenue-raising measures. Thus, on a net basis, the new measures reduce the budgetary balance by $39.3 billion over 2023–2024 to 2028–2029.

My office has also published cost estimates for measures included in budget 2024, including the refusal of tax deductions for short-term rental, employee ownership trusts, Canadian journalism labour tax credit enhancement and accelerated capital cost allowance for eligible new purpose-built rental housing. We also published a blog post on increasing the borrowing limit.

In the coming weeks, my office will publish further analyses on measures announced in the 2024 budget, including the capital gains inclusion rate increase, the Canada disability benefit, an investment tax credit for clean energy, tax reduction for entrepreneurs and an update on the alternative minimum tax measures.

We are also preparing to publish analyses on reaching NATO's 2% target on defence spending, as well as the procurement of polar icebreakers. These analyses aim to provide parliamentarians with important information on key issues to inform your discussions about the country's economic and financial situation.

We would be pleased to respond to any questions you may have regarding our budget 2024 analysis. Merci.