Public Accounts Committee on April 15th, 2026

[Coralia Bulhoes]

On our books right now, we have mostly Government of Canada bonds. I'm unable to answer your question around what we're able to purchase or not. I can tell you that this is a decision made from a monetary policy perspective. We had some other provincial bonds on our books, but we didn't have any international bonds that I'm aware of.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

They're all domestic.

[Coralia Bulhoes]

Yes.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

Do you know if they're utilities, for example, or are they all provincial or federal bonds?

[Coralia Bulhoes]

I wouldn't be able to answer that, but I could get you the response through the clerk.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

Okay. That would be helpful.

That's it for me, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

There are a couple of minutes left, so I'm going to ask questions.

For the committee, the process you described as the bank taking positions by purchasing corporate debt is known as quantitative easing, which some refer to dismissively as printing money. It's that policy that coincides with the Bank of Canada's losses.

Would you say that's a fair statement?

[Coralia Bulhoes]

Yes, the large asset purchases made by the bank resulted in the losses.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Was that policy something the Bank of Canada needed the Government of Canada or the Minister of Finance to sign off on?

If you don't know that, it's okay. I'm not trying to....

[Coralia Bulhoes]

I don't know.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That policy coincided with the bank's losses. That policy ended, but last year, the Bank of Canada announced it was going to bring back quantitative easing, the buying of corporate assets, which some call printing money. Is that accurate?

[Coralia Bulhoes]

That's not quite accurate. The bank has returned to normal operations. It's not quantitative easing. It's just normal operations to manage the overall markets and its mandate.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

There was a news release that the bank put out. Am I mistaken? It says, “Bank of Canada announces restart of Government of Canada treasury bill purchases”.

Is that not what you'd call quantitative easing? Is that a different program?

[Coralia Bulhoes]

It's what we call just normal operations at the bank.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

What was that release signalling? Was it that you had ended another program or another policy that...? If you're saying that was a return to normal operations, what was it a return from?

[Coralia Bulhoes]

It was quantitative tightening.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

It was tightening, which is the reverse of easing. Okay.

[Coralia Bulhoes]

Quantitative tightening was when the assets were maturing and rolling off—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Your books.

[Coralia Bulhoes]

—our account.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Right.

You might have said this before, but to tie it all together, what's the potential fiscal impact of this return to normal policy? I won't call it quantitative easing.

[Coralia Bulhoes]

It's to mitigate the risk of any potential future losses related to normal operations. This is where the bank implements this matching policy of the interest rate and the duration on the assets it holds and on the liabilities it has on its books, so that the matching will mitigate against the risk of future losses.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I appreciate that.

I have a last question for clarification. This relates back to Mr. McKinnon's trying to understand this as a credit card. As I attempted to illustrate, when the Bank of Canada runs a deficit, it appears in the federal budget as a deficit, which is ultimately reported on the public accounts. When there's a surplus, that appears as revenue into the government's budget and helps with the Government of Canada's fiscal position.

You mentioned at the start of your opening that the bank's in the process of—correct me if I'm misquoting or misstating you—covering that loss. It will be in a position to cover those losses. Is that right? Will we see larger and larger transfers to the Government of Canada on the budget as revenue, I suppose, in the coming years? Is that correct?

[Coralia Bulhoes]

Yes, that is accurate, starting this year with a surplus and then in the upcoming years all the way to 2030. After that, we will be returning funds to the receiver general for Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That is reported by the finance minister when he or she tables the budget.