Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Governor and Senior Deputy Governor, it's great to see you here again at committee.
Governor, it's been widely reported that our GDP per capita is at its lowest growth rate since the 1930s. The GDP per capita has declined now, according to Stats Canada. It declined in the second quarter. That was the fifth consecutive quarter in a row. It's also been reported that Canada lags significantly behind the U.S. in GDP per capita, which is a trend that's continuing. In fact, Canada is now at 71% of the U.S. economy. We rank 18th in the OECD and sixth out of seven in the G7, ahead of only Italy.
Yesterday, at a summit in Toronto, you said, fixing Canada’s productivity problems will likely take a top-to-bottom overhaul of government rules that obstruct people’s ability to do their best work and businesses’ ability to grow: “Monetary policy, fiscal policy, tax policies, competition policy, IP policy—we need to look at those”.
My first question has to do with the increase in the capital gains inclusion rate. Do you find it unhelpful to deal with our productivity crisis, which is the label the senior deputy governor put on it back in the spring, when the government goes and makes such a massive increase to such an important tax?