Thank you for the question.
We do two things with commodities. We differentiate between energy commodities and non-energy commodities. For energy commodities, our forecast is the futures curve for natural gas and oil. You're absolutely right that natural gas is far more important to Canadian growth and activity in Alberta, at least at the current time, than the price of oil. As you well know, natural gas prices are off sharply since January by almost 17% or 18%. That is part of the deterioration in our terms of trade.
The second thing we do, based on our global outlook, is forecast on non-energy commodities. That global outlook has come down in this report versus the last one. As a result, there's a softening in the global commodity outlook.
If you want a very simple shorthand on this, look at table 3, page 19, real gross domestic income, which is a way of aggregating this, plus other factors. There is a sharp reduction in the outlook for 2009 and 2010. So there's an income effect there that has implications.
The sharp downturn in Q1--the 7.3% annualized contraction in Canada--and the slightly sharper downturn in Q4 than we previously forecasted have an implication, in that firms have a lot more inventories than they wanted. That provides some of the drag to growth in Q2 and Q3, as they don't produce us much and need to work those inventories off. That has short-term implications. So those factors are important.
On the U.S. activity variable you referenced, commodities play a role, but given the weight of manufacturing exports to the U.S., the response to the earlier question stands.