Announcements

On behalf of the Minister of Finance, the Bank of Canada announced today that the government will be proceeding on a pilot basis with a bond buyback program for cash management purposes. The program is designed to reduce the peak levels of government cash balances needed to redeem large upcoming maturities of Government of Canada marketable bonds. Design of the operational framework has been based on consultations with market participants.

The strip bond sub-committee of the Investment Dealers Association (IDA), in a letter dated June 23, 1999, has recommended that “the current ceiling on reconstitution of bonds should be removed to allow reconstitution beyond the quantity stripped by book entry, which at times may be beyond the original issue size”.