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Anyone who has read our last Monetary Policy Report, the winter issue of the Bank of Canada Review, or our just-released Annual Report knows that the Bank has been positive about Canada's economic outlook. Basically, we are looking for a solid pickup in the pace of economic expansion in coming months, with inflation remaining low. And, with improvements in the basic foundation of our economy, we see the potential for sustained good economic performance over the medium term.

Press releases announcing and explaining monetary policy decisions play a critical role in the communication strategy of central banks. Because of their market-moving potential, it is particularly important how they are drafted. Often, central banks start from the previous statement and update the earlier text with only small changes.

We discuss the competition and innovation arguments for issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). A CBDC could be an effective competition policy tool for payments. A CBDC could also support the vibrancy of the digital economy. It could help solve market failures and foster competition and innovation in new digital payments markets.

The authors present the four common cyclical vulnerabilities that appear in financial systems, providing examples of qualitative and quantitative indicators used to monitor these vulnerabilities across different sectors. They also discuss other inputs to the vulnerability assessment and to the internal process used at the Bank of Canada for identifying, evaluating and communicating vulnerabilities and risks, and highlight some of the key challenges in assessing financial system vulnerabilities and risks.

This paper looks at the role mortgage brokers play in helping borrowers generate quotes and qualify for credit. We find that, on average, borrowers that engage with a mortgage broker pay lower interest rates. However, in about 15% of cases, borrowers are steered towards longer amortizing mortgages than they would have chosen absent a broker. Since mortgages with longer amortization have higher total interest costs over the entire life of the mortgage, this steering is expensive.

I study a model of competing data intermediaries (e.g., online platforms and data brokers) that collect personal data from consumers and sell it to downstream firms.

We present a technical description of the Top-Down Solvency Assessment (TDSA) tool. As a solvency stress-testing tool, TDSA is used to assess the banking sector’s capital resilience to hypothetical future risk scenarios.

We ask whether a weaker contribution of information and communication technologies (ICT) to productivity growth could account for the productivity slowdown observed in Canada since the early 2000s. To answer this question, we consider several methods capturing channels through which ICT could affect aggregate productivity growth.

The number of job gains and losses across firms in Canada each year is roughly one-fifth the total number of jobs and generally occurs within sectors (industries) rather than across sectors. Since labour reallocation within sectors has been strongly related to productivity growth in Canada, defining the key drivers of this type of reallocation is important, given the higher rates of reallocation and productivity growth in the Untied States than in Canada. This article finds that the appreciation of the Canadian dollar and rising commodity prices led to above-average reallocation of labour across sectors over the 2005-08 period, but that the impact on productivity has been minor. Labour reallocation across firms, however, generates substantial labour productivity gains in manufacturing and the business sector as a whole.

Results of the fourth-quarter 2025 survey show that concerns over high prices and economic uncertainty related to the trade conflict continue to have a negative impact on consumers. As a result, even though labour market conditions improved somewhat, the CSCE indicator declined slightly. Expectations for near-term inflation remain higher than they were before the pandemic, while those for long-term inflation eased below pre-pandemic levels.