Speeches and appearances

With your professional interests in foreign exchange, money markets, capital markets, and derivatives, I'm sure the past year and a half has been exciting and interesting – if those are the right words. We've been living through a period of astonishing financial turbulence, historic marketplace losses, and serious threats to financial stability.

As we have consistently emphasized, stabilization of the global financial system is a precondition for economic recovery, both globally and in Canada. To that end, policy-makers around the globe have acted aggressively and creatively by initiating a series of unprecedented actions aimed at stabilizing the global financial system.

Let me state at the outset that the speed and synchronized nature of the recent global downturn has resulted in a heightened degree of uncertainty, which is evident in the diverse views on the outlook.

These are challenging times, indeed. We are facing a financial crisis without comparison for generations. Most financial markets have experienced historic declines in prices and unprecedented spikes in volatility.