Finance committee  First of all, Mr. Chairman, Mr. McKay, the potential pressure from financial institutions or from the political leadership on the Bank of Canada is always there anyway. In other words, the bank governors can read newspapers too, and understand what sort of pressure is out there i

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. McKay. I agree that this is exactly the risk ultimately that presents itself to the Bank of Canada when powers are expanded quite liberally and open-endedly the way they are. I confess to some hesitance about saying so, because it is very impor

Finance committee  Good afternoon to you, Mr. Chairman, and to all. I thank the committee for inviting me. It is always a delight to appear before this committee. Clearly I am here to discuss this budget bill, and there's a lot in that bill, so I'm going to restrict my opening comments to TFSAs an

Finance committee  Thank you. That's a very good question. These are all very good questions. The role of government here is to make sure that resources, meaning people and financial investment, can go where they're most needed. Markets are very good at that. Governments can help. But before I c

Finance committee  Rob raised a few points in his discussion about policy measures, so I'll let him go ahead.

Finance committee  Clearly, Mr. Chair, I'm going to have to have a talk with Roger. The floating exchange rate, or inflation targeting, is a monetary order that's been working very well for Canada. The question of a fix immediately prompts you to ask, “At what level?” This actually would go back

Finance committee  Of course, if I may, because I didn't have a chance to answer, the one thing you know is that if the U.S. inflation rate is sitting at 3.5 %, and ours is sitting at 2.5%, it's not going to stay where it is. That's not a choice you get to make.

Finance committee  That goes back to the point about fixing currency. What fixing a currency does is mask real price changes, real relative price changes. The market price of oil is very high right now compared to the price of cars. You have to make a lot more cars to buy a barrel of oil. That diff

Finance committee  Good afternoon Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It's terrific to be here with a new Parliament. Thank you very much for having me. I will be addressing you in English, going forward. So on the loonie, the loonie has been flying high, stalling and falling, and flyin

Finance committee  That's right, Mr. Chairman. In France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.K., there are different variations on thin-cap rules of one sort or another with respect to foreign investment. The U.S. has a quite different system, but trust me, you do not want to know about it.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ms. Ablonczy--terrific. There is just one point about the Mintz committee. The 1998 report did recommend a change roughly along the lines of that proposed by the March 19 budget, absolutely. However, the report went on to say you would only do this in

Finance committee  The exemption model would apply to France, Germany, Japan--pretty much--and Italy. The U.K. uses a model whereby you have a taxation and a credit for taxes paid abroad. These models all do exist out there; there is a range of them in place. I believe one of the witnesses at the t

Finance committee  Thank you. I don't have to disagree with you. What I'd like to get across, though, is a sense of caution. We're talking about a specific tax measure, which on some axes of fairness and equity makes perfect sense. On other axes of fairness and equity, it doesn't necessarily make

Finance committee  Yes, that's certainly consistent, John, with what I said.

Finance committee  It is correct that we cannot abandon the double-dip. What we can do is prevent one of those dips being taken in Canada, should we so choose.