Again, that's a very good but complicated question to answer.
Fundamentally, in terms of running monetary policy, what we do by raising and lowering interest rates is to influence the level of total demand in the Canadian economy. So if you lower interest rates, you support or stimulate higher demand. If you raise interest rates, you do the opposite.
What we try to do, in very simple terms, is to set interest rates at a level that keeps total demand in the Canadian economy close to what the economy is capable of producing. If demand is above that supply capability, it leads to inflation. If it's below, it leads to disinflation. That is fundamentally what we try to do.
Now, in doing that for the Canadian economy, it is complicated. We do need to add up the factors that are influencing total demand in the Canadian economy. That includes what is happening in the United States, because we have these direct trade links with the United States. It includes a view as to what's happening in China, because we see those links through commodity prices. It includes our view as to what's happening in financial markets, because there are links through financial markets.
Our job is to add all of this up in terms of how we see these factors impacting on the Canadian economy, setting policy to keep supply and demand in balance and, through that, inflation low, stable, and predictable. It's that predictability and low level of inflation that we think is the single-most contribution we can make. We do not want to go back to the 1970s and 1980s.