Despite the enthusiasm for the financial supermarket in the early 1980s, by the end of the decade the concept had stagnated, and the benefits of specialization and the provision of niche service were recognized instead. I believe that this past experience with business conglomerates could be tempering some enthusiasm for affiliations among the larger financial firms.
In our discussions, Governing Council was particularly concerned about the ramifications of US trade policy, because it is so fundamental to the Canadian economy. But we cannot capture these in our projections because they are simply unknown at this point. We considered the possibility of not incorporating any US policy changes in our projection.