Well, stagflation is a very provocative word.
I grew up in the 1970s, and the big problem was stagflation. What that looked like was double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment.
Inflation is still too high. At 3% or 4%, inflation is too high.
I know you're all hearing from your constituents. They're having trouble keeping up. Affordability is a real issue, and we need to get inflation down. Prices are going up too quickly. However, it's not double-digit inflation. It's not even 8% inflation. We've brought it down considerably since then.
The unemployment rate remains pretty low by historical standards. It has gone up a bit, from about 5% to about 5.5%, but by historical standards, it's pretty low.
What we're seeing now is not what I would call stagflation. It is true that in our outlook that we put out last week, we did revise up our near-term outlook for inflation and we did revise down our near-term outlook for growth. That is an indication that this is proving to be a little more difficult than we had hoped, but I would stress that it is working. As higher interest rates feed through the economy, we do expect inflation to come back down and growth to resume, and Canadians won't have to live with the ongoing anxiety of inflation.