Now there are clear monetary and fiscal objectives and clear accountability for meeting those objectives. The transparent framework that has been established will be extremely helpful in meeting the challenges that the future is sure to bring. Two of these challenges are already apparent—a possible increase in the trend rate of productivity growth and a slowdown in population growth combined with an aging population.
Both these factors create uncertainty about the growth and level of production potential of our economy. Fortunately, this broad type of uncertainty is not new, either for the Bank of Canada or for the fiscal authorities.