##e, british columbia. that act, 128 years ago today, concluded the construction of the railway system upon which canada was built. we are very lucky to have the last spike with us here today. well, sort of the last spike. every spike has a story. in actual fact, there were three spikes. the first was damaged when it was hammered in, so it was removed and turned into jewellery. the second “ last ” spike was removed shortly after it was driven in to make sure that no souvenir hunters grabbed it. it was eventually transformed into a carving knife. the spike we have here today truly is the “ last ” spike, in that it ’ s the one that has lasted. it was supposed to be driven in by the governor general of the time, lord lansdowne. an unforeseen glitch that canadians throughout history can relate to – a snowstorm – prevented lord lansdowne from attending the ceremony, so he mounted the spike and sent it to sir william van horne, the cpr executive who led the project. but to tell us more about canada ’ s railway, i would like to ask marc laliberte, president and ceo of via rail, to come to the podium. bis central bankers ’ speeches

government - this is the political and supreme body of the zone, with the overall responsibility for the achievement of the objectives of the wamz ; ( ii ) the convergence council of ministers and central bank governors - the supervisory authority of the wamz and its institutions ; ( iii ) the technical committee which works in collaboration with wami, to facilitate the integration process ; ( iv ) the west african central bank ( wacb ), when established, would be the common central bank of the zone, while the existing national central banks will be national branches of the wacb ; and ( v ) wamz stabilization and cooperation fund ( scf ) to provide financial assistance to member states that may experience temporary disequilibria in their balance of payments. convergence criteria under the wamz the convergence criteria for the west african monetary zone focus on achieving inflation rate of 5 per cent by 2003 ; fiscal deficit gdp ratio of 4 per cent by 2002 ; limiting of deficit financing by the central bank to 10 percent and maintaining sufficient level of gross official foreign exchange reserves of at least 6 months of imports by 2003. the agreement establishing the zone stipulates that the convergence criteria be achieved and sustained within a given time frame. however, there have been slippages and inconsistencies in the performances of member countries regarding attainment of the stipulated targets. while some countries of the zone were negatively affected by civil conflicts, the situation was compounded by severe terms to trade experienced by many countries in the last few years. a major militating factor was expansionary fiscal policies which tended to weaken relatively tight monetary policies pursued by the sub - region ’ s central banks. the poor state of infrastructure was also unconducive to investments and economic growth. the poor country performances relative to the stipulated targets necessitated the extension of the period for meeting the convergence criteria, before the establishment of the common central bank, from january 2003 to june 2005. progress / prospects of actualizing the single currency objective of the wamz the authorities of the wamz have programmed several actions to be taken to strengthen macroeconomic convergence and stability. the wami, in collaboration with experts from member countries and the technical committee, has been taking concrete steps and providing some viable solutions to various technical issues involved in the arrangement. a forum for ministers of finance of member countries of the zone was established in 2002 to be discussing how best to address the problem of fiscal dominance in a co - ordinated manner that would reduce fiscal