Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Giroux, I have a few questions for you.
You talked earlier about the effect of the carbon tax on the inflation rate. You said it might go down if the carbon tax were eliminated or it just might not go up as quickly. I think I've paraphrased you correctly on that.
The bank governor was here on October 30, I think. He confirmed that the carbon tax, at the time, added 0.06% to inflation, and that the increase from $65 a tonne to $80 a tonne would add an additional 0.15%. I think that if he were here today, after April 1, he would say that the carbon tax adds 0.75% to inflation. If it were eliminated today and if inflation is 2.9% today, arguably it would go down by 0.75 percentage points and it would be roughly 2.1%.
Just a couple of weeks ago, during the economic policy report, the bank governor said that they were holding fast on interest rates—they're holding the policy rate at 5%.
I am curious about your opinion. If the carbon tax didn't exist and the inflation rate had been 2.1% on that day, wouldn't it have been harder for the governor not to reduce the policy rate two weeks ago, saving thousands of dollars for every Canadian who has loans and mortgages?