Finance committee  Sir, are you referring to our monetary policy report, or to my opening—

Finance committee  My opening statement here this morning...?

Finance committee  Yes. There's quite a bit in our monetary policy report, not just this one but in the previous one about those constraints, transportation constraints and market access constraints. Various terms are used and quite a bit of analysis has been done by our staff on what the implicati

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Just to close on the first question if I may, what I'm suggesting in that line that you quoted to me is that I believe the energy sector in Alberta continues to adjust to the previous decline in oil prices, from the $100 range to the $50 to $60 range. This is showing up in lower

Finance committee  It's certainly possible that it may affect investments in high carbon emission sectors. That is a potential consequence, and I would even say it is probable. When people have to pay a tax, this may encourage them to reduce their carbon emissions. It may also lead to lower investm

Finance committee  That does not really fall under our purview. I did read something in the papers concerning the current budget and the moment when certain things are added. According to our analysis, revenues are higher than anticipated. This is another indication of the economy's solidity, and

Finance committee  As you said, this issue comes up constantly. Since last year, we have seen some encouraging developments. First, obviously the new mortgage rules have changed things in a positive manner. Secondly, household debt was on the upswing for a long time because of the increase in the

Finance committee  That is part of our net analysis of the effects of interest rates on the economy. People who have bonds receive interest. The yield curve is very flat and has not changed for a long time. For the moment, there is no very big change, but I expect that some risk may change the yiel

Finance committee  No.

Finance committee  I would say that the revision down is primarily structural. I wouldn't quite use the word “permanent”, but that revision reflects four separate methodologies that look at it through different lenses. The main thing that's going on there is that the global neutral rate appears t

Finance committee  I would just say that when we were analyzing the macro economy back when it was introduced, it made a significant difference to the level of the macro economy. As for comments related to poverty and the distribution of income, I'll turn to Ms. Wilkins.

Finance committee  I have no comments beyond the ones I think you've offered. For us, it's basically mechanics. It's not a judgment about how policies will perform or how the mix of policy may have changed things. For us, it's just a matter of taking the spending lines that are laid out in a budget

Finance committee  At this time, it's still difficult to say. Certainly you're right that in the surveys, our own survey in particular, companies are mentioning that. They were mentioning that as a possibility back in our previous survey. It comes in the context in which expectations for future i

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Chair. My apologies for a couple of minutes of tardiness. We're not quite used to the new arrangements. This is our first visit to the new building.