Finance committee  Based on the evidence and what I've heard at the last committee meetings, I think you can say that you had the autonomy to say “no”, but I don't think you didn't. In fact, the RCMP's providing evidence was tantamount to these people's bank accounts being frozen. There were very few exceptions to that.

Finance committee  Basically, even though you had, in legal terms, the autonomy to say “no”, your members didn't, and every account that the RCMP wanted frozen, was frozen. That's generally correct to the 90th percentile or so.

Finance committee  Your members are going to do a legal calculation on this. Could you tell me if, in fact, the bank didn't freeze accounts, they could face significant consequences? Is that correct?

Finance committee  Sorry. If the RCMP provided material that the individual should have had their accounts frozen and your member chose not to freeze them, they could face significant consequences, couldn't they?

Finance committee  Exactly. On the other side of that, if they froze an account incorrectly because of the way the proclamation was drafted, there would be no consequences to your members. Is that right?

Finance committee  Sure. I know that your members want to do the best for their clients. Looking at this on a strictly legal scoreboard, if, in fact, they illegitimately froze a bank account, they would face serious legal consequences. It's clear from the legislation.

Finance committee  Right. There were zero consequences if they froze one incorrectly, but if they didn't freeze a bank account, there were serious consequences. If in fact you were doing your risk management, which banks do very, very well, there would have to be a disposition or a bias towards freezing a bank account as opposed to not freezing a bank account.

Finance committee  Governor, if we were able to increase the amount of oil and gas that we were able to put into the global market—and you've stated in seven out of 11 press releases that this is a major driver—that would reduce inflationary pressures.

Finance committee  I can tell you that in my town of Orono, whereas you talk about excess savings, they're talking about how they can't pay their heating bill. They're talking about the fact that they can't afford their gas and their oil bills. If we saw, for example, a decrease of 10% in the gasoline, oil or fuel costs of Canadians, would that impact inflation?

Finance committee  The carbon tax equates to about a 10% additional cost on oil and gas. If we were able to give Canadians a holiday for a period of time, would this help them cope with the additional pressures they're facing as a result of inflation?

Finance committee  It's about ready to go up, but if you look at the cost of petroleum today to fill up your gas tank, to heat your home or, in farmers' cases, keep their livestock warm, it can equate to far more than 0.1%, I can assure you. According to Saskatchewan agricultural producers, it was costing their farmers, on average, an additional 10%.

Finance committee  What I was talking about was giving Canadians a holiday—not on the increase, but a holiday from the carbon tax.

Finance committee  If you said that a 10% reduction in the cost of fuel would have an impact on inflation, and the carbon tax equates to about a 10% cost, it only makes sense. If a equals b and a equals c, it makes sense. Could we have those numbers? Could we have the impact of the carbon tax—in total, not the increase—on inflation?

Finance committee  Thank you for that, Governor. The other thing that I found a bit odd was that on one hand, you talked about the fact that monetary policy wasn't leading to inflation. However, at the same point, you gave yourself a pat on the back earlier on and said that it was monetary policy that saved us from deflation.

Finance committee  I will yield the time there.