And we have consistently expected that the impact would be particularly pronounced in Canada, owing to the combination of the timeliness and scale of monetary policy stimulus, fiscal stimulus, the strength of our financial system, and the relative health of Canadian corporate and household balance sheets. It now appears that those expectations are beginning to be fulfilled.
With inflation well above our longer-run goal of 2  -3percent and an extremely tight labor market, we raised the target range for the federal funds rate at each of our past three meetings, resulting in a 1-1/2 percentage point increase in the target range so far this year.