Good morning, Mr. Chair. Thank you, panellists, for your thoughtful remarks. I'll try to be as pointed and as quick as possible.
Dr. Lee, thank you for your slides. They were very insightful. As an economist myself, and someone who's worked in the finance and capital markets sector for 25 years, I understand where you've gotten your data.
In reference to the poverty slide, our platform is going to do more work on the poverty side—that is, bring it down. We've come out with the Canada child benefit, which will be introduced this year. It will lift 300,000 children out of poverty. I think it's a worthy endeavour. I think it's great policy.
There is the announcement on the guaranteed income supplement for single seniors. Those are worthy endeavours on the policy side by the federal government. I think it is a great slide to bring out. We need to do more work in reducing the poverty rate in Canada, and that's what we're going to do.
The Canadian economy in the 1970s grew by about 4% in real GDP; in the 1990s, it grew 3%; in the pre-financial crisis, it was about 2%. I remember working on the bond desk when everything was imploding in the U.S. We're now growing at about 1%.
What are three things that can get the economy growing, quickly? I have some follow-up questions, so please be quick.