Accordingly, my comments this afternoon will focus on households. I would like to concentrate in particular on the implications of Canadian household finances for financial stability in our country. I spoke here in Toronto a year ago, almost to the day. Then, the global financial sector crisis was buffeting the real economy. Businesses were postponing large investments, and households were hesitating over major purchases.
Let me now focus on some elements of our monetary policy concept. To start with, I would like to stress something which is essential in order to understand all that we have done over the past five years: we were asked to deliver a new single currency that would be at least as good as each and every national currency.