The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday, Sept. 17, edition that for as long as Stephen Poloz has been the governor of the Bank of Canada, he has confronted suggestions he is biased in a favour of a weaker exchange rate. The Globe's Kevin Carmichael writes that each time Mr. Poloz says something negative about the Canadian economy, or something obvious about the economic impact of a stronger exchange rate, he is accused by someone somewhere of trying to "talk down" the dollar. Mr. Poloz explains that a floating exchange rate works as a shock absorber, rising when inflation gets hot and falling when the economic growth begins to flag. He says Canada's exchange rate is tethered to resource prices, and that the central bank would have had to slash its benchmark rate to 0 from 4 per cent in 2005 to keep the exchange rate at 85 U.S. cents. That would have only stoked inflation, hurting exporters' competitiveness by raising their input costs. He says intervention in foreign-exchange markets is based on the false impression that central banks know the appropriate level at which currencies should trade. Mr. Poloz says manipulating markets "is just not in our game plan."