Well, the first thing I'd like to say to all Canadians is that we know that Canadians want to see inflation come down. They're tired of seeing prices go up so quickly, and we know that they'd like to see interest rates come down. So would we.
When we have more assurance that those inflation pressures are easing and that inflation is clearly headed back to 2%, we can have that discussion about cutting interest rates. However, right now, monetary policy is working, and we need to let it keep working.
If I can just expand a little bit.... When I was here last October, I got a very similar question. What's happened since October? Well, since October, the data we've seen with the economy, what we've heard from households and what we've heard from businesses in Canada have made us more confident that interest rates are now high enough to get inflation back to our 2% target.
That doesn't mean that.... You know, if new things happen, we may still have to raise interest rates. However, what it does mean is that if you take all of the data we have and if you take our outlook, it's suggesting that interest rates are high enough to get us back to the inflation target.
Your question is about when we can cut them. We can't put it on a calendar. We need to see how inflation evolves. We've seen this push-and-pull in inflation. We've talked about housing. That's boosting inflationary pressures. More broadly, we are seeing inflationary pressures come out. We need to see how that evolves, and when we see those easing further, when we see sustained downward momentum in underlying inflation, we can have that discussion.
I hope that comes sooner rather than later, but we're going to have to see how inflation evolves.