Freeland defends federal spending following Scotiabank report critical of Trudeau government | FULL

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Canada's Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland and her U.S. counterpart, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, held a news conference Monday afternoon amid soaring inflation in both countries.

Here, Freeland commented on a Scotiabank report that stated a cut in planned government spending could help tame rampant inflation and reduce pressure on the Bank of Canada to hike interest rates.

Freeland said it is chiefly the role of the Bank of Canada to bring inflation down, but realizes that fiscal policies play a role.

"This is a time of heightened inflation it is chiefly the central bank, the Bank of Canada which has the job of bringing inflation down, we recognize that and our government certainly respects the central role in the independence of the Bank of Canada," Freeland said.

Freeland added that "we understand that fiscal policy has a role to play that's why we took this decision in April to pursue a path of really, swift by the standards of our peers,” she said.

The report from the bank’s chief economist Jean-Francois Perrault and modeling director René Lalonde claims that Canadian fiscal policymakers are “doing nothing of any significance to slow inflation at the moment.”