Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Carney.
I want to pursue the line of questioning with respect to the volatility of the exchange rate and the high Canadian dollar overall, because this has important repercussions—everyone agrees on that—for the manufacturing industry, but also the farming industry and a number of other sectors. It also has significant consequences for the tourist industry.
If I understood you correctly, you believe the Bank of Canada's fundamental role is to continue to pursue inflation control. I take from that that the problem should resolve itself. However, other banks across the world are succeeding fairly well. They influence exchange rates by using interest rates and their monetary reserves to purchase or sell currencies. I'm wondering whether the Bank could at least consider that type of intervention.
It seems to me that we should be seriously considering the possibility of a monetary union, as suggested by some, albeit outside considerations that are often more emotional than they are rational. We saw this with Mr. McCallum's comments earlier, when he made the connection between this issue and sovereigntists, when in fact Mr. Jarislowsky—who is not known as a hard-core sovereignist, was the one who came before us to talk about monetary union. There is a monetary union in Europe.
Mr. Jarislowsky also talked about another solution, which would be to establish a target range, a little like what is done for inflation control. We say it should be 2 per cent, or midway between 1 and 3 per cent. Could the Bank consider the option of having a target range, saying that it would like to see the dollar at 80¢, plus or minus 10¢, and intervene on that basis? Is this something that you could look at and that we could debate outside of what are often more sentimental or emotional, as opposed to rational, considerations?