, and canada radically amended some of its laws. the banks reacted to the new competitive environment by innovating and improving their efficiency. canadian institutions became global leaders while foreign banks lagged, bound by more restrictive and less efficient regulatory regimes. for a full 30 years, canada maintained its lead on the world stage. recall that subsequent revisions to the law allowed greater competition between traditional pillars of finance, i. e., banking, insurance, brokerage, and trusts, thus driving down costs and increasing efficiency. over the course of the past decade, efforts have focused on improving prudential regulation, which seeks to stabilize institutions and the financial system as a whole. in 1987, the federal government created the office of the superintendent of financial institutions and the financial institutions supervisory committee. the purpose of the latter is to facilitate the exchange of information between various federal bodies involved with financial stability, including the bank of canada. at the bank, one of our less well - known mandates is to oversee payments infrastructures, especially the large value transfer system. the lvts is an electronic system launched in 1999 and operated by the canadian payments association. it meets or exceeds the highest international standards in matters of risk management, and does so at a fraction of the cost. experience has shown that a solid and comprehensive infrastructure contributes greatly to the robustness of a financial system. allow me to take advantage of this occasion to draw your attention to another less - recognized contribution of the bank : its financial system review. in it, the bank presents its current analysis of systemic risks, along with articles that tap into the wealth of research that we conduct into financial markets. in other matters, the restructuring of canadian stock exchanges at the end of the 1990s allowed specialization and solidified our market position. since that time, the montreal and toronto stock exchanges, and the tsx venture exchange have experienced remarkable expansion. it remains to be seen how the inchoate movement to consolidate markets elsewhere in the world will affect us here, and the new challenges it will pose to canadian stock exchanges. also, even though north american financial markets are more integrated than ever before, their regulation has not always kept pace, and non - tariff barriers, which one would have expected to disappear in an era of free trade, persist. in particular, i am thinking of the constraints imposed on small u. s. investors wishing to buy canadian stock. all in all, even though the canadian financial system has continued to develop since the porter report, it is clear

report 2023 : broken record – temperatures hit new highs, yet world fails to cut emissions ( again ). 3 intergovernmental panel on climate change ( 2023 ), climate change 2023 synthesis report – summary for policymakers, march. 4 see european environment agency ( 2024 ), european climate risk assessment, executive summary, p. 29. 5 for more details on resourcing as a key challenge, see basel committee on banking supervision ( 2023 ), newsletter on the implementation of the principles for the effective management and supervision of climate - related financial risks, 21 november. 6 see, for example, elderson, f. ( 2023 ), " come hell or high water : addressing the risks of climate and environment - related litigation for the banking sector ", speech at ecb legal conference, 4 september ; and network for greening the financial system ( 2023 ), climate - related litigation : recent trends and developments, september. 7 ceglar, a., boldrini, s., lelli, c., parisi, l. and heemskerk, i. ( 2023 ), " the impact of the euro area economy and banks on biodiversity ", occasional paper series, no 335, ecb. 8 elderson, f. ( 2024 ), " " failing to plan is planning to fail'' – why transition planning is essential for banks ", the supervision blog, ecb, 23 january. 6 / 6 bis - central bankers'speeches