Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Governor. Thank you, Deputy Governor.
I know you've thought long and hard about productivity. Let me put a question to you that I put yesterday to the executives of Canada's large corporations. The government, over the past 13 years, has done many things that the corporate business community has asked to be done. Debt to GDP is down, interest rates are under control, you could include fiscal stimulus, or contractions--you get it within a band--interest rates are under control, and taxes have been substantially reduced--pretty well everything on the shopping list. Yet year after year our productivity seems to decline, both absolutely and relatively.
I know you've done a lot of thinking about this, and I know you've done a lot of thinking about it with respect to the financial services sector even, which should be a strength. I'd be interested in your opinion as to where we look now.
We arguably have the most generous R and D credits in the world. We have publicly funded research--arguably the most advanced in the world. We have reversed the brain drain, and we are now in a brain gain. What's left is business. So what's the issue?