That's obviously a question for the committee to consider.
What I would underscore is that the forces behind this phenomenon affect all major economies. They are longer-term forces, not short-term cyclical forces. Understanding those, and designing policies that address them constructively, is a challenge that all major advanced economies face. So I'd leave it to you to decide.
From the Bank of Canada's perspective, let me say two things, if I have time, Chair. Our single biggest contribution to this issue is to meet our inflation-targeting mandate, because the one thing we know from hard experience is that inflation and inflation volatility hit the worst-off in our society the most. Others can hedge themselves.
The second thing I'll say, which is from an equality or fairness perspective--and you've referenced that quote.... One of the points I was trying to make in my comments, and maybe made poorly, was that one of the issues of fairness is whether the financial sector is special versus every other sector of the economy. In other words, if you have a family farm, crop prices are down, and you have a bad harvest, what things happen? If you have a small business or if you have a big business and you make a series of mistakes, or things move against you, or international competition, you fail. If you have a large financial institution.... What we learned during the financial crisis is that you have to be rescued. And those were legitimate decisions made in economies outside Canada; we didn't have to take these decisions.
But that should change. And a large part—not all of it, but a large part—of the agenda on financial reform, both globally and here in Canada, is to end “too big to fail”, which brings back a true element, in our opinion, of fairness to the system and addresses some of these issues.