A stable price environment can help the economy to adjust quickly and effectively to economic shocks – events such as 9/11 and the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. And in fact, Canada has not experienced a recession since 1991. Finally, labour markets. Labour markets have also shown a significant improvement.
Time lost to labour disruptions has decreased, the length of union contracts has increased, and the unemployment rate has fallen to a 30-year low. So that's the big picture, and it's a favourable one. I'd like to say a few words now about the current situation – how we've done recently in pursuing our monetary policy objective.