Industry committee  But at the same time, overall employment has gone up, and it's not just been in the resource sector, in response to your question. We've had big employment gains in construction, in the service sector, and in Toronto the financial services sector is becoming increasingly more imp

Industry committee  We have no objective in mind regarding the dollar. There are always positive and negative factors influencing the dollar. Commodity prices are very high, but at the same time, the slowdown of the American economy is a negative factor for the Canadian economy and, consequently, fo

Industry committee  We'll be short.

Industry committee  That's a lot in a short period of time.

Industry committee  I won't comment specifically on the decisions by the U.S. Federal Reserve, but I will remind you—and I said this when we last met—that in our projection for the Canadian economy we have a projection for the U.S. economy, and in that projection for the U.S. economy we had built in

Industry committee  We do have an agreement in place with the government, and it is tied explicitly to our inflation target of 2%. In November 2006, the government and the Bank of Canada issued a joint statement indicating that the inflation target for the bank for the next five years would continue

Industry committee  This one and the one before that were each for a five-year term. So this one extends to 2011.

Industry committee  First, the Bank of Canada's objective regarding inflation is to have a stable performance of the macroeconomy and a fairly substantial growth rate in jobs as well as in all the other important factors of economic performance. In 2008, the economy's growth rate will be weaker tha

Industry committee  I think you have crossed the line in terms of what a prudent central banker would comment on. It's certainly not our role to comment on specifics of fiscal policy, tax cuts versus expenditures, and so on. Our focus is very much at the macro level. Really, I can only repeat what

Industry committee  Let me answer your first question, and I'll turn to John to answer your second question. We do monitor what goes on across the regions very closely. We have regional offices across Canada. We have offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Halifax, Toronto, and Montreal. We have a group of

Industry committee  Well let me pick up on that last point and then turn to John. I think what is important to remember here--I'll use the word “shocks”--is that these developments we are facing as an economy represent the reality of what is going on in the world economy today. You just have to go

Industry committee  What I'm saying is that I support policies that promote the movement of resources from one sector to another in response to shocks. The more we can do to facilitate flexibility and adaptability, the better the Canadian economy will perform, the higher level of employment we'll ha

Industry committee  That's another very good question. Let me start by going back to what we experienced in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In this country we had something like 20 years of deficit financing at all levels of government. Our public sector debt levels accumulated to a level that was a

Industry committee  I don't think in theory there's any ideal rate of debt-to-GDP ratio. I think the track we're on is a very good track, from that point of view, and it will continue to provide that macro stability that we need.

Industry committee  Perhaps I could first mention, Mr. Carrie, that when we were here last time, I think you had posed a question with regard to net migration flows within Canada. We said we would come back on that, and we did provide the clerk with a set of tables. I just wanted to let you know tha