What I would like to do now is describe how the Bank put its independence and accountability to work over the past two years to support Canadians through the pandemic. To do that, I need to go back in time to a little more than two years ago. The Canadian economy—indeed, the global economy—had been suddenly shut down to deal with a health emergency.
And in the euro area, historically low policy rates and the extensive asset purchase programmes have led some to discuss whether and in what way monetary policy affects the distribution of income and wealth. Upon closer examination, the claim that very low interest rates increase in-equality by driving up asset prices is somewhat too straightforward.