This is my topic today – providing you with an update of what has been achieved, and what remains to be done. The importance of these efforts should be obvious. Five years ago, the complete loss of confidence in private finance could only be arrested by comprehensive backstops from the world’s richest economies.
In the ensuing recession, the global economy lost more than $ trillion in output and almost 28 million jobs. Here in Canada, we learned that keeping our own house in order is not enough. Even with our strong and well-functioning financial system, the Canadian economy suffered a decline of almost $ billion in GDP and lost more than 430,000 jobs.