Finance committee  I'm happy to clear the good name of the Dutch. We'll speak in terms of the importance of commodities and commodity prices for the Canadian economy. Let me start by underscoring that at the Bank of Canada we use, for forecasting purposes, 20-plus models, but our core general equi

Finance committee  Yes, but it also implies that the responsibility lies with FCAC, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. It is the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada's responsibility to monitor the situation.

Finance committee  We understand the situation. It is an important one. This is an issue that concerns consumers. The government has a plan. It is an important issue for individuals, but it is not necessarily an important issue in terms of Canada's economic outlook.

Finance committee  Do you mean if we were to target the exchange rate?

Finance committee  The expectation, I'm certain, in all of the discussions is that Canada is a free-trading nation and supports free movement of capital as well. If we were to try to control the level of our exchange rate, we would have to take a variety of steps and start to close what is one of t

Finance committee  Mr. Macklem will respond to that.

Finance committee  Yes. This is an important point, and it goes to Monsieur Caron's question on our monetary policy framework. We have a commitment to flexible inflation targeting, as you know, and an important component of that is a flexible exchange rate. I can link a few of the questions we ha

Finance committee  Yes, as many customers as possible and multiple options from an infrastructure perspective that can be supported by the policy.

Finance committee  This is an infrastructure issue, yes. Those are the two main pieces, yes.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have to answer those questions?

Finance committee  Good. In terms of inflation control, it is still the Bank of Canada's position that a flexible framework for inflation targets is the best. Here in Canada, we are in a very different position from that of the United Kingdom. We do not have significant public and private delevera

Finance committee  We have highlighted this issue again in this report, as you would have seen. This is ultimately an issue of pipeline and refining capacity. It is not our view that this is an issue of deficient U.S. demand. We see the possibility of American “energy security” in a few decades, bu

Finance committee  Well, the downside risks are several-fold, and it's one of the downside risks we've highlighted for a number of reports for our outlook on inflation. Chair, I don't know if I have time to give a full answer to this, but they would go to the direct issues around construction. Th

Finance committee  Yes, I want to come to that, because this is a big issue, and you have raised this in this committee a number of times. We have highlighted it because it's central to the outlook to the Canadian economy. About a year ago, we had a very odd situation here, unprecedented for a co

Finance committee  Those are two very important questions. First, with respect to, as you rightly say, jobs without people and people without jobs, this is a fundamental issue of a mismatch in the labour market. A number of Canadians are still out of work. I mean, we have had very strong employmen