I'll do my best to give the witness time, and I'll focus on real-world examples where possible.
There's a point I want to pick up on from my colleague Mr. Poilievre. It seems as though he wasn't listening to Professor Milligan's testimony before this committee. He pointed out very eloquently that it wasn't government decisions that led to increased cost to Canadians; it was the fact that we have a global pandemic that has created a certain cost. In fact, he said the government's response is probably one of the best ways to mitigate the social costs of the pandemic.
From there we heard testimony from other economists who suggested that the federal government is perhaps in the best position to incur some of the debt that this virus has caused in order to, again, mitigate social consequences. When your predecessor testified, he made the same point: that if anything, this pandemic is likely to have a deflationary effect and that if there was some inflation, it might actually help the economy in these scenarios.
Coming back to the point that Mr. Poilievre led with, which is really about the risk that a higher interest rate could potentially have, I'm curious about something. You mentioned that you don't believe there is a risk at present of that kind of an economic consequence, but why is that? Are there strategic risks we should be turning our mind to that could cause a sudden and unexpected hike in the rate of inflation or, more importantly for the purpose of this line of questioning, the rate of interest?