Finance committee  Clearly, Canada has more monetary options and more fiscal options. That is an advantage.

Finance committee  Yes, I was just going to add to that. By looking over a longer horizon, as you're aware, the demographics suggest that the growth of the labour force is going to be declining. In fact, it's already started. Effectively, workers are aging. We're all having fewer babies and so the

Finance committee  Thank you. There are all kinds of innovations, and significant competition in the credit card sector. There are good innovations and not-so-good innovations. We have seen that in the financial sector over the past few years. It is not the Bank of Canada's mandate to regulate cr

Finance committee  I don't think that it is up to us to defend the private banks. They have their policies and I would encourage households to find the best options for their situation.

Finance committee  I would maybe just add one thing a little more broadly on this issue of foreign workers.

Finance committee  Getting back to Mr. Jean's question, in the recession there were a lot of people out of work and it was really about finding jobs for people. As you look into the future, with declining labour force growth and with baby boomers who are retiring, increasingly the challenge is goin

Finance committee  To retrace a little bit what I said in that speech, and indeed what we've both been talking about on a number of occasions...being right beside the United States, historically, has been a wonderful thing. It has been one of the biggest and growing markets in the world. But the re

Finance committee  There are a few things. I think it starts with really recognizing that just waiting for the U.S. to come roaring back is not a great strategy. You're going to have to get out there more aggressively. We recognize that historically it's been very easy to do business with the Unite

Finance committee  It links to our commodity sector. There is a lot of technology, there is a lot of expertise, and there is a lot of design in commodities. It's something that we can leverage globally. There are a lot of commodities to be developed around the world.

Finance committee  I can give a couple of quick numbers, if you want. Through the recession, Canada lost, on a proportionate basis, half as many jobs as the United States. We're more than 200% above where we were at the trough. The United States is less than 60%. So they haven't even regained all

Finance committee  Yes, it's really only Germany.

Finance committee  Yes, there were a little over 400,000 lost. We've regained all of those—

Finance committee  —and doubled.

Finance committee  Thank you, yes. That is a good question. Up until now, the steps taken by the government, OSFI and by us, through our upward bias with respect to our interest rates, have, all together, succeeded in reducing the activity rate in the household sector and the credit growth rate. I

Finance committee  I'll make a couple of points. First of all, it's worth underlining that the mobility of Canadian workers has improved quite markedly over the last decade. We have some research done at the Bank of Canada that shows this, and we can share it with the committee. This has noticeably