BIS Review 28/2002  9  Concluding thoughts Just over 25 years ago, in the absence of appropriate anchors, Canadian monetary and fiscal policies both went badly off course. It then took 15 to 20 years to establish the appropriate focus for those policies and to bring them back on course.
Now there are clear monetary and fiscal objectives and clear accountability for meeting those objectives. The transparent framework that has been established will be extremely helpful in meeting the challenges that the future is sure to bring. Two of these challenges are already apparent—a possible increase in the trend rate of productivity growth and a slowdown in population growth combined with an aging population.