Industry committee  Obviously, the prices of energy products and other commodities are high due to global demand, especially from emerging countries. In our monetary policy update, we use future contracts to estimate energy prices, which reflect the market consensus. Roughly, the price of energy in

Industry committee  According to our base scenario, there is no recession in the States. As John mentioned, in the first semester of this year, there will be very slow growth, at an annualized rate of close to 0.5 percent, but not a recession. This growth rate will have an effect on the Canadian eco

Industry committee  It is difficult to comment on other countries' policies. According to our base scenario, the turnaround in the US economy in the second semester of this year will come as a result of US monetary policy. There are also tax incentives that will contribute to this turnaround.

Industry committee  This is a vast subject. I would like to emphasize that the structure of the US economy is very different from that of the Canadian economy. For example, a shock on commodity prices, on natural resource prices, is a positive shock for Canada and an improvement in our terms of trad

Industry committee  It is the floating exchange rate that allows us to manage the Canadian economy according to our domestic situation.

Industry committee  To be quite direct, it would mean further declines in our policy interest rate. When we talk about monetary stimulus from that perspective, that's what we mean.

Industry committee  Exactly. The projection we present, as I noted earlier, with that weakness in the first half of the year we did lower our policy rate on December 4 and again on January 22, and what we're indicating here is the likely need for further monetary stimulus, which is the phrase we use

Industry committee  When we think about what I'll call fiscal policy, to look at it in the broader context, when we put together our projections for the Canadian economy, we basically take as given what we know about fiscal policy that has been announced either by the federal government or the provi

Industry committee  That's it exactly.

Industry committee  “Normal” is a difficult word to comment on. What we're facing here in Canada is a series--I apologize for using a technical term--of relative price shocks. The best example of that is the increase in commodity prices. The issue really is how do we best adapt to these relative pr

Industry committee  No. We have a target for the rate of inflation, but we do not have a target for the exchange rate.

Industry committee  I certainly can't comment on the reported comments of the minister. What we say in our policy report is that when you look at all the factors that have been influencing the Canadian economy, an exchange rate of around 98¢ is not inconsistent, in our view, with the fundamental fa

Industry committee  We have to make certain assumptions about key prices, if you like, that go into this projection. As I noted earlier, in the case of energy prices we use the futures curve, which is the market's best view at any point in time. But that is an assumption. Given that assumption, we s

Industry committee  In fact the Canadian dollar has not been the only currency that has moved up. We actually have some charts that perhaps my colleagues can circulate.

Industry committee  Absolutely. The Australian dollar, the euro--all these currencies have moved up against the U.S. dollar more or less in a similar way to the Canadian dollar. You get variations, but by and large you'll see that from this chart. John can talk to that later. I know time is short,