Oil prices have come down from their highs, as have some metals prices. This has led to a recent reduction in our terms of trade, a decline in the external value of our currency, and a slowing in nominal GDP growth, implying reduced growth of government revenues.
For Canada, the performance of the U.S. economy is crucial to our prospects, so let me turn to the situation there. After a strong start to 2006, U.S. economic growth moderated. This moderation largely reflected a substantial downturn in the U.S. housing market and a cyclical slowdown in the market for automobiles. There are two important points to be made here.