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The recent crisis was characterized by widespread deterioration in funding conditions, as well as impairment of the mechanism through which liquidity is normally redistributed within the financial system. Central banks responded with extraordinary measures. This article examines the provision of liquidity by central banks during the crisis as they adapted their existing facilities and introduced new ones, while encouraging a return to private markets and mitigating moral hazard. A review of this experience illustrates the importance of clear principles for intervention, a flexible operating framework, and clear communication and co-operation by central banks. By exposing the degree of interdependence of financial institutions and markets, the crisis highlighted the need for reforms aimed at improving the infrastructure supporting core funding markets and the liquidity of individual institutions.

Growth in the Canadian economy has been essentially in line with the expectations set out in the Bank’s January Monetary Policy Report Update.

In accordance with the schedule of term purchase and resale agreement (PRA) auctions for private sector money market instruments announced on 31 October, the Bank of Canada announced today that it will enter into a 14-day term PRA transaction for private sector money market instruments as follows:

In accordance with the schedule of term purchase and resale agreement (PRA) auctions for private sector money market instruments announced on 28 November, the Bank of Canada announced today that it will enter into a 21-day term PRA transaction for private sector money market instruments as follows:

In accordance with the schedule of term purchase and resale agreement (PRA) auctions for private sector money market instruments announced on 20 January.

Over the past year, Canada’s economy has outperformed the economies of virtually all the other major industrial countries.

This morning, we released our spring 2001 Monetary Policy Report. In the six months since the November 2000 Report, the pace of economic expansion in Canada has slackened, primarily because the economic slowdown in the United States has been more pronounced than anticipated. The extent of the easing in economic activity in Canada is the […]

Last week, we released our spring Monetary Policy Report, in which we discuss economic and financial trends in the context of Canada's inflation-control strategy. I last testified before this committee in October, following the release of our autumn Monetary Policy Report.

The global economy has continued to expand robustly. However, U.S. economic growth slowed in 2006, with the weakness concentrated in the automotive and housing sectors.

During the 1990s the Bank of Canada made several changes that transformed its conduct of monetary policy. In the 1960s and 1970s, policy decisions were made in an environment characterized by instrument opaqueness and goal opaqueness, which tended to shield the Bank's operations from scrutiny and accountability. Since the 1970s the Bank has moved towards transparency and openness by rejecting multiple policy instruments and adopting a single, well-defined goal of inflation control. A recent survey has shown that the Bank of Canada is in the middle range of central banks with regard to its transparency and has lost points for not publishing the forecasts that shape its policy or the minutes and voting records of its governing body. Chant suggests that the public has benefited significantly from the changes the Bank has made, but that it should continue to support research on the benefits of low and stable inflation and continually inform other policy-makers and the public of the results.