The Financial Post reports in its Saturday, Nov. 12, edition that the federal government and the central bank said in a joint statement in December, 2021, "The Government of Canada and the Bank of Canada believe that the best contribution of monetary policy to the well-being of Canadians is to continue to focus on price stability." The Post's Kevin Carmichael writes that there remains, however, a certain amount of confusion about the BOC's motivations, which might partly explain why Governor Tiff Macklem felt compelled to restate his mission at the start of his speech about the labour market last week. That is because the new mandate included a tweak: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mr. Macklem added language that said the BOC would also seek to achieve "maximum sustainable employment" as long as the push did not jeopardize the "primary" objective of achieving "low, stable inflation over time." The Post says the addition simply made an implicit commitment explicit. Some Conservatives speculate the inclusion of explicit language around employment in the mandate meant Mr. Macklem was focused on Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey when he should have been watching the CPI.