Fiscal health has been restored and, even in the short run, we will continue to make progress in bringing down our public debt-to-GDP ratio. And significant business restructuring has taken place, with more to come. 4  BIS Review 13/2002  Thanks to these improvements, Canada fared better in 2001 than many other countries.
The same point was recently raised by Reza Moghadam, former Director of the IMF’s European Department, arguing for a more widespread coordinated fiscal easing in the euro area in order to prevent a slowdown from slipping into a recession.