Is Flaherty taking anti-competitive action on interest rates?

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Flaherty wants to end the interest rate wars! Who does he think he is any way!
Let's look at the facts.
Manulife offered mortgages to customers who qualified at a very low 2.89%. This is hardly a war. Let's see. That amounts to a savings of, well, .002% per year. Even compounded semi annually that means  .002 x $1,000 borrowed or $2 per year per thousand borrowed! Hardly earth shattering and not likely to be the determinant of anyone deciding to use Manulife for their mortgage.
Thank you Manulife! You did the right thing! You attempted to be competitive. I am certain you have underwriters who know your profitability at such levels. So congrats! You win!
In fact, if we look at the race to zero interest rates, few banks will lower their mortgage rates much further except to get our friendly mortgage brokers excited enough to pass their clients on for these "tremendous" mortgage rate savings.
My kids say I talk about the good old days too much. But, lets look back to 1981 when I paid +20% interest rates simply to run my small business of the day. Yes, I wrote +20%!  Will this happen again? I guess Flaherty's concern is yes. We just do not know when.
So Mr. Flaherty, you have every right to be concerned about the effect of an interest rate war. My bet is that the war will not be fought at the 3% interest rate level. No, it will be fought when consumers are again gouged by the big banks and the government like the 80's when we paid dearly. That is a war that will leave casualties just like it did in the 1980s, lost businesses and lost homes.
That said, let us take advantage of big businesses fighting for our business with still lower rates.
Or, Jim, are you just too concerned your big bank buddies cannot compete? Or are you just protecting the profits of those big bank buddies? Either way, you are anti-competitive tampering with the banks. That is the job of the Bank of Canada.
That is the way I see it, anyway!