Carolyn Rogers: Economic progress report - thinking globally, acting locally

Good afternoon, and thank you to the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce and the Associates of the Asper School of Business for supporting this event and giving me the opportunity to speak with you today. And thanks to all of you for choosing to spend your lunch hour with me.

It's a particular pleasure for me to be in Winnipeg. I still consider this city - and this province - to be home. I was born here, grew up here, attended university here and started my career here. And I still have a lot of family, friends and former colleagues in Manitoba, so this feels a bit like a homecoming for me.

Yesterday was International Women's Day, and I had the opportunity to meet with an inspiring group of women leaders from across this province. Today I am looking forward to hearing from you.

The Bank regularly surveys Canadian consumers and businesses as part of our work. But having the chance to hear from you directly about how your communities and businesses are navigating economic decisions day-to-day is very important to us. We know the decisions we make have a real impact on people.

And I do plan to spend some time discussing the Bank's decision yesterday to hold interest rates steady and letting you in on our thinking as we made that decision. But let's start by setting the scene. I'll begin with inflation because that's what we target. We can all agree that it's still too high. It has started to come down, but, at 5.9%, we still have a way to go to get back to our 2% target.