The Bank of Canada retains considerable monetary-policy flexibility despite rates being near the zero bound, said Mark Carney, the governor of the central bank.

Carney said that three key monetary-policy options remained:

· conditional statements about the future path of policy interest rates;

· quantitative easing, which involved buying government bonds; and

· credit easing, the outright purchase of private-sector assets.

He said that if required, these instruments could be used separately or