Speeches and appearances

As an economist who worked as a banker for most of his career, Douglas Gibson brought an interesting perspective to public policy issues, to the relationship between government and business, and to the contribution of outside economists to government policies.

This past year, we have had to deal with the implications for our economy and our currency of increased global uncertainty and pressures arising from the problems that originated in Southeast Asia. I am sure that the effects of these developments, especially on primary commodities, such as oil and nickel, are already very familiar to Newfoundlanders.

In mid-May we published our semi-annual Report on monetary policy, covering data up to April 24th. That means we now have new data available for the last two months. Furthermore, our report also pointed to a much greater-than-usual degree of uncertainty about the outlook for the Canadian economy.

Mr. Chairman, my colleagues and I are pleased to appear before your committee on a regular basis following the release of the Bank of Canada's Monetary Policy Report. It gives us a chance to discuss with you a range of economic and monetary issues. More generally, our semi-annual Report and sessions such as this one […]

Globalization - that is, the growing integration and interdependence of national economies - is changing dramatically the economic landscape. Countries are trading more goods and services, an increasing number of firms now operate across national borders, and savers and borrowers have greater access than ever before to global financial markets.