Introduction
Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here. I want to thank the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and the Bank of Canada's Calgary office for setting up such an impressive event. I look forward to meeting with and hearing from many of you while I'm in Alberta.
Monetary policy is working to bring inflation down-and we are encouraged by the progress we've made so far. Consumer price index (CPI) inflation was 3.3% in July, roughly in line with what we expected in our July Monetary Policy Report. Our 2% target is now in sight. But we are not there yet and we are concerned progress has slowed. Monetary policy still has work to do to restore price stability for Canadians, and we are committed to staying the course.
In my time with you here, I will begin by discussing our recent monetary policy decisions. Then I want to dig into the inflation data to give you a sense of what we're seeing and what we're looking for on the path to price stability. I also want to outline the progress we've seen in rebalancing demand and supply in the economy. How these evolve will be critical to our policy decisions going forward. Finally, I want to answer a question we are getting more frequently from Canadians: Why are we so focused on the 2% target? Isn't being close to 3% good enough? The short answer is no-and I'll explain why we're committed to getting all the way back to 2%.
