News

The appointment of Mark Jewett as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary to the Bank of Canada has been approved by the Board of Directors of the Bank. Mr. Jewett will work in close collaboration with the Governing Council of the Bank on all management and financial stability matters. He will join the Bank on 25 June 2001.

The Bank of Canada today released the document Renewal of the Inflation-Control Target: Background Information, which provides additional details on the target arrangements and on how the Bank plans to implement them in order to increase the predictability of inflation over the longer term. This release follows the announcement yesterday by the Government of Canada and the Bank that the inflation-control target is being renewed for a period of five years to the end of 2006.

The objective of Canada's monetary policy is to support and advance national economic well-being by contributing to sustained economic growth, rising levels of employment and improved living standards. The best contribution monetary policy can make to securing this outcome is to preserve confidence in the value of money by providing individuals and businesses with the certainty of a stable, low-inflation environment for their economic decisions.

The Bank of Canada today released its thirteenth semi-annual Monetary Policy Report in which it discusses economic and financial trends in the context of Canada's inflation-control strategy. The Monetary Policy Report is published every May and November.

The Report provides our latest assessment of the outlook for economic growth and inflation in Canada. Before I give you a flavour of that assessment, I would like to say a word about the objective of Canadian monetary policy and how we go about achieving it.