is a win - win proposition that will benefit individual citizens as well as the economy and country as a whole. the main beneficiaries of any financial literacy programme would be the citizens who stand to gain better control of their financial circumstances, and this can mean more financial independence and enhanced well - being. but there are economy - wide spill - offs. for instance : • employees who are not pre - occupied with pressing day - to - day financial problems are more likely to operate at higher levels of productivity which certainly benefit their employers ; • better informed consumers of financial services could foster competition among financial firms, contributing to improvements in service quality and cost ; • there is no doubt that improved financial literacy bestows significant benefits to the financial sector as it facilitates more informed choices by customers. when customers understand what they are buying there is less room for complaints about being misled, and this is good for the credibility of the financial sector. the files of the financial services ombudsman are full of complaints from customers who clearly did not understand the insurance or banking product they had chosen. financial education is all the more important now when, technology and the quest for efficiency have diminished banker - customer interaction. research conducted in several oecd countries provide evidence, for example, that : • workers increase their participation in retirement savings schemes when employers provide tangible support to financial education programmes ; • mortgage counseling has been found to be very effective in reducing the risk of mortgage delinquency ; • young adults who make personal budgets and plan ahead tend to manage personal debt better. the central bank is hoping to partner with the several institutions represented here today. the partnership could involve financial, organizational and human resource ( volunteer ) assistance. we would like to suggest a few possible options : • some non - financial corporations sponsor educational programmes in certain schools. such firms could partner with the bank to include financial literacy in the curriculum and could cofinance with us the extension of the programme to a larger number of schools. • corporations that are interested in youth development have the opportunity of sponsoring financial literacy programmes for groups that they would wish to assist. • we invite tertiary institutions, such as costaat, cipriani college, uwi and utt to partner with us in the delivery of financial education to their young and not - so - young students. we extend a similar invitation to the relevant authorities to include financial literacy as part of the various government - sponsored training programmes. • we would welcome a partnership with those lending institutions that

have been mixed. while job growth has certainly been firm, both wages and unit labour costs have grown only slowly. the data suggest that material slack remains in the canadian labour market, in contrast with the us labour market, which is close to full employment. at the same time, canadian exports and business spending are still weaker than you would expect to see at this stage of the business cycle. companies are telling us that while they plan to raise spending, the planned increases are modest, or tied to maintenance, rather than expansion. in short, the economy is not yet firing on all cylinders. in addition, canadian companies are dealing with heightened levels of uncertainty related to us tax and trade policies. we still do not know what tax changes are coming, or when. and the range of potential trade measures under discussion is even wider now than it was in january. it includes a border - adjustment tax, increased tariffs aimed at specific industries or countries, nontariff barriers and even broader, multilateral measures. we do not know which of these will be enacted ; their timing is uncertain ; and each would affect the global and canadian economies 1 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches through a different, complex set of channels. with all of this uncertainty, we cannot reliably model the impact of changes to us trade policy. instead, we have built in an extra degree of caution in our forecast for exports and investment relative to our january projection. total inflation has been close to 2 per cent and is expected to dip to about 1. 7 per cent in the middle of the year before returning to near its target. however, our core inflation measures are all in the lower half of the target band and have been trending downward. this supports the view that the economy continues to have significant excess capacity. our current base - case forecast calls for the canadian economy to absorb its excess capacity sometime in the first half of 2018, which is a bit sooner than we projected three months ago. we are certainly happy to see the recent strength in the economic data and want to see more of it in order to be confident that growth is on a solid footing. we judge that the economy still has material room to grow. and we remain mindful that significant uncertainty continues to weigh on the outlook. given all of this, we judged that the current stance of monetary policy is still appropriate and maintained the target for the overnight rate at 1 / 2 per cent. with that, mr. chairman, senior deputy wilkins and i would be