Finance committee  If I may jump in, the Bank of Canada Act permits the central bank to buy literally any kind of asset. I think that is a very good option available to the Bank of Canada, because I think we're really into a very unknown period. My own sense, and I perhaps have never gotten this across, is that the basic problem with the worldwide economy and even the Canadian economy is insufficient spending, period.

Finance committee  As an outside observer to your very fascinating process, I wish you would get the stimulant dollars out much faster and more efficiently. Dr. Peters and I suggested that maybe the federal government should take a lead by being willing to spend a much larger proportion in year one.

Finance committee  May I jump in? The same budget paper also pointed out that if you want the greatest bang for your tax cut, then you want to cut taxes for very low-income households. This is not surprising; you'll get a stronger economic stimulus that way.

Finance committee  Thank you very much for your question. The only thing is that we're not apologizing for the government; that part I won't accept. It's quite clear to us, and it's overwhelmingly evident in the evidence, that the spending multipliers--as in the bang for the government buck--are much larger than the tax multipliers.

Finance committee  May I just jump back in on the credit question? We are experiencing, globally, a massive financial de-leveraging, and I acknowledge that the Canadian banks are in a far better position, as I know my colleagues understand, than their counterparts in other countries. At the same time, we shouldn't be satisfied only with the fact that credit creation through the Canadian banking system seems, if you look at the numbers, almost normal, because it's the non-banks that have collapsed in a major way, and it's the non-bank credit that goes through sales finance companies, life insurance companies, the commercial paper market, etc.

Finance committee  Thank you very much for the question. There's a very simple concept in economics 101. I'm not sure if it's taught any more; it's called the fiscal multiplier. As the Canadian budget recognized and as the Congressional Budget Office reports recognize, the multipliers are, for the short term, much larger on the spending side than on the tax side.