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  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  I just want to mention two things. First, it is important to distinguish between the situation in Canada and the situation in a lot of other advanced countries. Our situation is quite different. Compared with other countries, Canada has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio. As the gover

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

Finance committee  We lost 430,000. We got those back, and we've added about another 380,000.

Finance committee  As you said, a change in the value of the Canadian dollar has various effects on companies, depending on their area of activity. For example, if we are talking about an import company, a stronger dollar means it is less expensive to buy goods or services from other countries. In

Finance committee  Sure, I'll give a brief response. First of all, you've hit on a valid point. We have a fairly high level of public support for R and D. Where we don't do as well is in terms of private R and D and particularly the commercialization. There is something of a puzzle there. It's

Finance committee  I'll just say a few more words. The Financial Stability Board, as the coordinating mechanism, has put out a document describing how the FSB is going to work together with the standards setters to ensure rigorous implementation.

Finance committee  The first part is also a very important question. Clearly, the first step was getting the new capital, the new liquidity, rules agreed to, including a limit on leverage. That's been done. Now emphasis is increasingly focused on implementation. Obviously, rules are only as good as

Finance committee  With regard to other countries, it is important to note that one of the major advantages of a flexible exchange rate is that we can have a monetary policy that is right for our country. As we have already mentioned, when the global recession hit, Canada fared much better than any

Finance committee  I'll say a few words with respect to the dynamics. In our July monetary policy report, we were already expecting a fairly weak second quarter, partly as a result of the supply chain effects relating to the earthquake and subsequent disasters in Japan. Also, looking back to the

Finance committee  Could I just add one brief point?

Finance committee  I will just add that for some time we have been stressing the need for Canada to increase its exposure to emerging markets. I'm on my way to India this evening and will be meeting with senior officials at the central bank and in the government, as well as with a number of leaders

Finance committee  Certainly. As you indicated, there are a few elements to the new Basel III capital rules. First of all, let me just say that it's a very good agreement, with an appropriately lengthy transition period, reflecting the fact that it is a significant strengthening of the rules. In

Finance committee  Could I add one point? It's worth stressing that the other element of the welfare of Canadians is getting the economy functioning at its level of potential output. At the moment, there are unused resources. So if you go back to table 2, what you see is that we're growing above po