Government debt in many advanced countries can no longer be considered a risk-free asset, Tiff Macklem, the senior deputy governor at the Bank of Canada, said on Wednesday.

At the National Insurance Conference of Canada, held in Vancouver, Canada, Macklem said: "As long as large debts need to be refinanced, sovereigns will remain vulnerable to changes in global growth and investor sentiment. This presents a fundamentally new landscape in which government debt can no longer be considered a risk