sometimes for nefarious purposes. against this backdrop came the pandemic and its devastating global economic impact. central banks have taken unprecedented monetary policy actions to save livelihoods, support economic recovery and avoid deflation. for the bank of canada, this has meant our first foray into quantitative easing. central banks are conducting unconventional monetary policies alongside extraordinary fiscal stimulus, which is challenging public perceptions of our operational independence. so, it is more important — yet harder — for central banks to be trusted sources of information and analysis. the imperative is to step boldly beyond market transparency and engage with the public to explain how our actions serve our economy - wide objectives. this means listening to more people, understanding their perceptions — accurate or not — factoring broader public views into our policy decisions and communicating with people on their terms, not ours. 1 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches let ’ s remind ourselves why this matters. first and fundamentally, we are all public servants. the public has a right to understand what we are doing, and we need to be accountable for our actions. second, we know that monetary policy works better when people understand it. third, many central banks are at the lower bound for their policy interest rate. in this situation, it is more essential than ever that household inflation expectations remain anchored on our target, so we can lower real interest rates. we can influence those expectations with our communications. that is why many central banks, including the bank of canada, are providing unusual forward guidance on our policy rate paths. and there ’ s a final, existential reason : without public understanding and support for independent central banks, we risk losing the public trust that is so core to our mission. issues in public communications back in greenspan ’ s time, central banks didn ’ t put much effort into tailoring messages to the public. instead, we relied on the media to speak to market participants and economists and then interpret our messages for the public. andy haldane has described this as the practice of central bankers speaking only to men : markets, economists, news agencies. 2 this practice hasn ’ t been entirely effective. a recent nber working paper shows that news articles about monetary policy are only about half as persuasive in terms of molding inflation expectations compared with communications that come straight from the central bank. 3 the best way to get our messages to the public is to deliver them ourselves. central banks have been moving toward more direct public engagement. we can all learn from

the fed listens program as well as the bank of england ’ s citizens ’ panels and community forums. around the world, central banks are using museums, social media, podcasts, even reggae songs, to tell their stories to their citizens. the bank of canada, like others, has taken steps to sharpen its public communications. we publish layers of content aimed at different audiences. we produce short animations to illustrate the main points of our flagship publications — the monetary policy report and the financial system review — and we promote these across social media channels. we use readability tools to ensure that public speeches are not unnecessarily complex. after all, even an audience as expert as this one is more likely to lose attention if i ’ m reading what sounds like a phd dissertation. ( hopefully that ’ s not what i sound like. ) further, we are working hard to make our communications more relatable to people ’ s everyday lives. let ’ s use this pandemic as an example. covid 19 has caused a huge disinflationary shock. but we need to recognize that many people don ’ t feel like inflation is falling when food inflation has been averaging almost 3 percent. people should know that we are taking that into account when we make policy. deputy governor larry schembri devoted an entire speech to this topic earlier this week. a key to enhancing our relatability is listening — engaging the public in conversations. the pandemic has precluded many traditional events where these conversations can happen. so, we are being nimble with technology to engage stakeholders, including the public. we just launched a “ let ’ s talk inflation ” online campaign as part of our effort to reach out to all canadians before the bank renews its agreement with the canadian government on the monetary policy framework in 2021. we know that there is a clear correlation between increased understanding and higher levels of trust. this correlation demands that we devote more effort to economic and financial literacy. to that end, the bank of canada replaced one of its expert publications with a more accessible digital magazine, the economy, plain and simple, to explain relevant and timely economic 2 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches issues to non - expert audiences. we have added a series of simple articles, videos and animations to explain the ways we ’ ve responded to the pandemic, covering everything from quantitative easing to payment systems. an opportunity to build trust in times of crisis, people look to public