We had a very strong response in the depth of the pandemic. Two years ago the economy was in a huge hole, roughly 15% below its prepandemic level, and monetary policy, which included lowering the policy rate using exceptional forward guidance and quantitative easing, was instrumental in supporting the recovery. I'm certainly not going to take all the credit. Fiscal policy, very effective vaccines and just the adaptability and resilience of Canadians were extremely important as well.
I guess the way I would put it is that we're raising interest rates now, and we've signalled that we need to normalize monetary policy reasonably quickly. That's not because our policies failed. That's because they were very effective, and we're now dealing with the other side of that.
As I've said, did we get everything right? No. We have been surprised, in particular, by the persistence and the pervasiveness of these supply constraints. Inflation is now too high, and we are normalizing policy to bring inflation back to target, and Canadians should be confident that we will succeed.