Thank you for your question.
Is it appropriate not to have a fiscal anchor during a crisis? There are two ways of looking at it. On the one hand, we can say that it is completely appropriate, since a fiscal anchor is no longer worth much in a crisis situation, given that the future is so uncertain. That's true. On the other hand, I think giving up on any fiscal anchors increases the uncertainty about the state of public finances, because it creates a lot of ambiguity about where they are headed.
It would have been possible to have a fiscal anchor and suspend it, with a commitment to return to it later, or at least to review it. That's what several provinces that had fiscal rules have done and still do. In my view, it would still be possible to do that. We could give ourselves some leeway as a country. Of course, we can't commit ourselves to a constantly declining debt-to-GDP ratio. But we can commit to returning to our fiscal anchor, or trying to return to it, once the situation has stabilized. That would have been one way to go.