Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I thank my honourable colleague for ceding his time to me.
Thank you to the representatives of the Bank of Canada for being here.
I'll start with some opening comments, and then I look forward to your answers to my questions.
We understand and respect that the Bank of Canada is an independent body, and we believe it should remain that way. We understand that you set monetary policy and the federal government sets the fiscal policy.
I want to direct your attention to something you've already acknowledged—that the decisions being made by the Bank of Canada have real impacts on real Canadians. I know you know that, but I want to highlight the real impacts. High interest rates will mean that some families will lose their homes. High interest rates will potentially trigger a recession in Canada, which will mean that workers might lose their jobs.
I'm going to start with some of the comments you made about wages. Since the beginning of the year, I think it's very fair to say, at no point have wages kept up with inflation. In fact, the opposite has happened—wages not keeping up with inflation has meant that most workers, with the cost of living and inflation going up, have experienced a pay cut, and yet, last summer you advised employers not to increase wages.
Do you think it's appropriate to tell employers to keep wages low despite wages not keeping up with inflation and despite how this will keep workers even further behind, when there is no evidence that wage increases are driving inflation? Coupled with that, why have you never mentioned a similar concern with the high profits of corporations, but you have referenced concerns about wages potentially going up, which hasn't been the case?