Market notices

The Bank of Canada announced today it will sell $2 billion of its holdings of treasury bills. This transaction will offset the temporary increase in assets associated with the term purchase and resale transactions announced today.

As part of its continuing provision of liquidity in support of the efficient functioning of financial markets, the Bank of Canada announced today that it will enter into a 28-day term purchase and resale agreement (PRA) as follows:

The results of today's term PRA operations are as follows:

On 5 March 2008, the Bank released for comment its proposed eligibility criteria for accepting ABCP and noted that two broad policy objectives guided the Bank's assessment. First, the eligibility criteria should mitigate any risks to the Bank that might be associated with accepting ABCP securities as collateral for the SLF.

As announced in the Debt Management Strategy 2008-2009, minor operational changes will be made to the bond buyback program to broaden the eligible basket of securities available for buyback operations. The changes are as follows:

The results of today's term PRA operations are as follows:

Since the co-ordinated actions taken in December 2007, the G10 central banks have continued to work together closely and to consult regularly on liquidity pressures in funding markets. Pressures in some of these markets have recently increased again.

Today, a Summary of Comments on the Debt Strategy Consultations for 2008/09 is being published on the Bank of Canada's website in conjunction with the release of the government's Debt Management Strategy for 2008/09 on the Department of Finance's website.

Section 5.1 of the Statement of Policy Governing the Acquisition and Management of Financial Assets for the Bank of Canada's Balance Sheet states that "The Bank's holdings of Government of Canada nominal bonds and treasury bills are structured to broadly reflect the composition of the federal government's stock of nominal domestic marketable debt."

Each year since 2004, the Bank of Canada has undertaken a questionnaire with banks that are active in the Canadian dollar foreign exchange market through offices in Toronto and/or Montréal.