With public sentiment turning against the banking system, then-Prime Minister R. B. Bennett set up a Royal Commission, leading to the establishment of a central bank to act in the public’s interest. And since 1935, the Bank of Canada has been operating with a mandate to promote the economic and financial welfare of Canada.
Within the euro area, as countries share an exchange rate, a key measure of competitiveness is the relative cost in particular of labour compared with relative productivity – in other words, unit labour costs. In the first decade of monetary union a focus on unit labour costs and their implications for competitiveness was largely missing.