Finance committee  We don't track how many appliances are demanded by consumers, but this business condition survey asks whether or not firms have had difficulties in getting supplies themselves. We are seeing that businesses are experiencing difficulty in acquiring inputs of products or supplies, both domestically and internationally.

Finance committee  We're looking at introducing [Technical difficulty—Editor] explaining what we're going to do. Our plan is to introduce changes with the basket update this summer.

Finance committee  To be clear, the change we're going to make is not the inclusion of the used cars into the CPI, because they're already in the basket. We're simply changing the method used to track the movement and prices for used cars.

Finance committee  The big challenge will be in taking a look at the old school baskets. I think the biggest challenge is that there were commodities that were sold in the 1980s that may not be sold now, like VHS cassette tapes. This is similar to the commodities that are sold now that didn't exist in the 1980s, such as streaming services.

Finance committee  At Statistics Canada, we don't forecast where inflation is going to go. What we focus on is taking a look at what's happening by taking a look at individual commodities and what's happening in supply chains. There is a whole range of external factors that could affect inflation over the next six months to a year.

Finance committee  Climate change I see as a longer-term thing. I take a look at what's happened over the course of the past year, the droughts that we experienced in North America. The weather-related event of the drought for sure had an impact on crop yields, both in Canada and the United States, and severely affected the commodities that are grown in those areas.

Finance committee  Our last iteration of the business conditions survey was in the first quarter of 2022. We did this survey in co-operation with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and we asked businesses about the biggest obstacles they faced. The biggest obstacle they identified was the rising costs of inputs, including labour, capital, energy and raw materials.

Finance committee  Yes. We asked businesses whether or not they intended to raise their prices over the next three months, and our survey indicated that over one-third, or 36%, of businesses expected to raise their prices in that period.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  We work closely with other national statistical offices and with international organizations to share methods and look for best practices. There are international fora for this. Under the UN umbrella, there is the Ottawa Group on Price Indices [Technical difficulty—Editor] worked on under the umbrella of the IMF.

Finance committee  Our mandate does not include forecasting analysis per se. As we've indicated, today's release indicates the fourth straight monthly increase in GDP over a period when we've seen increasing inflation. We haven't hit that period of stagflation yet, if it is to occur. This is certainly something that we are monitoring and will continue to track.

Finance committee  Perhaps I can turn to Ms. Ertl on that.

Finance committee  If I can clarify what Ms. Ertl said, we don't do an analysis of the impact of taxes on inflation. We do include the value of a tax in the pricing of a commodity. An excise tax would be included in the price of whatever good has been sold.

Finance committee  It largely depends on the kind of survey we're talking about. Essentially, it depends on the source. In many cases, we're using administrative data in order to drive forward an estimate, in which case we're getting a full census of volatility. In other surveys, if I'm thinking about the monthly survey of manufacturers, the monthly retail trade survey, we're taking a look at response rates in the 80% to 85% range, and those are the economic production surveys that feed into GDP.

Finance committee  I would have to get back to you on specific response rates for the labour force survey. I don't have those off the top of my head.