This shift is increasing the stimulative impact of our quantitative easing program per dollar purchased. By concentrating purchases at longer maturities, we can have a bigger impact on the interest rates that are most important for households and businesses. This is allowing us to reduce our total minimum weekly purchases to $4 billion while still providing as much monetary stimulus.
Our QE program will continue until the recovery is well under way.
I hope this provides a good explanation of the bank's outlook and the policy response.
We work for Canadians, and it's essential that we be accountable to them, and appearances like this one are an important part of that accountability. Beyond this, monetary policy works better when it's well understood. The pandemic and the extraordinary actions we are taking in response only make it more important that we speak clearly and listen attentively to Canadians.
We want to be very clear: Canadians can be confident that borrowing costs are going to remain very low for a long time. In this way, our forward guidance combined with the QE program reduce one source of uncertainty. These efforts will help support the spending and investment that the economy needs to restore the lost jobs and achieve our inflation target.
Finally, Chair, if I can take a minute, at the risk of embarrassing my colleague, to say a few words, as you did, to recognize our deputy governor, Carolyn Wilkins.
As you know, Ms. Wilkins has decided not to seek a second term, and she's going to be leaving us after our next monetary policy decision in December. Ms. Wilkins has spent her entire career working for the people of Canada, with the past 20 years at the Bank of Canada. As senior deputy governor, she's provided tremendous leadership as a policy-maker. In particular, her experience has been instrumental in helping design the bank's response to the pandemic. She has been a champion for research and diversity at the bank and has driven the work that will underpin the next renewal of our inflation-targeting agreement. Thanks to Ms. Wilkins, the bank has become a global thought leader in fintech and digital currencies. She has served Canada with distinction as the bank's representative at the G7 and the G20 and the Financial Stability Board.
On a more personal note, I can tell you that her deep understanding of the Canadian economy and her insights at the policy table are going to be very difficult to replace. Her commitment to Canadians, her intellectual leadership and her good judgment are second to none. On behalf of every Canadian, I want to thank her for her service and wish her every future success.
Thank you, Chair. With that, Senior Deputy Governor Wilkins and I would be very pleased to answer your questions.