Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
On Wednesday the Bank of Canada increased the bank rate by some 50 bases points. It said that this was a pre-emptive strike against inflation. Virtually all of the experts have agreed that this is overkill by the Bank of Canada. In fact the inflation rate actually fell last month. It did not go up, it fell.
In light of that, will the finance minister put pressure on the Bank of Canada to reverse the hike in interest rates and refrain from penalizing the Canadian people for an inflation crime they did not commit?