Finance committee  Yes. I have been challenged on this. Some have said we'll lose our Canadian identity. I have flown on Lufthansa and I've never learned how to speak German.

Finance committee  I have flown on Aeroflot and I've never learned to speak Russian. I have not been assimilated by flying on other airlines just because they have a foreign flag. We will not lose our Canadian identity. I'm in Hilton Head. I flew on United Airlines to get here, and I'm every bit

Finance committee  Schumpeter talked about this long before we suddenly discovered in the current contemporary era that there's a tendency to “oligopolize” in new industries, so we get all concerned about that. All I can remind everybody of is what Schumpeter said: There is no such thing as a perma

Finance committee  I'll be very quick. I think you're referring to his final book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, but that was a cultural interpretation. He said that capitalism is the most efficient form of all. It will be destroyed because of what he called “the sociology of the intellectu

Finance committee  Please believe me, thank you. We have to remove the legislative protections that protect those firms against external competition. I know there are people who will say, “Oh, my goodness” to that. I'm unionized, by the way, at the university, and I hear union colleagues saying, “

Finance committee  Deficits contribute to inflation over time, I believe. However, in this specific context, we had stable inflation from 1981 until the pandemic. Then we shut down the supply chains, and we know the reason why. We didn't realize how complex they are. I believe we thought we could j

Finance committee  I can. I talk about it in my classes all the time, believe me. The United State is sui generis—unique. It is truly in a class of its own. It is the world's superpower and the world's reserve currency because it has the largest economy in the world. They can do things that ordin

Finance committee  I think I can, and forgive my arrogance. I read a ton on this. I've come to the conclusion—I think Senior Deputy Governor Rogers, David Dodge and many others have too—that it's because we have too many protected industries. We don't even have free trade in Canada among the prov

Finance committee  Corporations will not compete if they don't have to. We have to make them compete. Make them compete. Open it up. Remove all protection for these companies.

Finance committee  I don't want anyone to think that I'm just a professor sitting in the ivory tower. I do read. I promise you that I do study this intensely. Mohamed El-Erian, the very distinguished chief economist, formerly with PIMCO and now with one of the major European financial institutions

Finance committee  Yes, because if you threw out the fall budget, which was put out a year ago essentially, the uncertainty would cause too much economic disruption. I didn't have time to deliver what I recommended, but I propose that things can be done to deal with our productivity crisis and ec

Finance committee  Thank you very much for that question. I didn't expect it, but I am really pleased that you asked it. I think we made a mistake, and I say that with great respect for the Competition Bureau. There are some very fine people there, but we've engaged in what I call nose counting—ho

Finance committee  I understand your question, and believe me, I've looked at the literature, because this is important. It would have been Mr. Chrétien's administration and Bill Clinton's in the States that got the OECD moving on this, so give them credit. However, I want to distinguish between t

Finance committee  I do. I studied Milton Friedman when I started my master's and Ph.D. I went back as a mature student at the age of 30. I'm a high school dropout, by the way. I was really stupid and irresponsible when I was a teenager. I learned my lesson and realized that education is key. I s

Finance committee  I've been talking about this in my classes for literally 35 years. I've studied and read, I think, every major document in our country on this topic, going all the way back to the seventies and eighties. I've come to the conclusion—and I agree with the senior deputy governor of t