Securing strong, sustainable, and balanced economic growth for Canada relies on two imperatives, both domestic and international, since Canada's potential growth was slowing, Canadian Central Bank Governor Mark Carney said on Wednesday. In a speech to the Ottawa Economics Association, Carney said that although Canada was a country of immense strengths and considerable resilience, its economy was underperforming relative to its potential, due to demographic drag and abysmal productivity record. 'The combination of slower productivity growth and demographic shifts could well mean that the average rate of potential growth for the Canadian economy will be closer to 2 percent going forward than the more than 3 percent we enjoyed in the first half of the past decade and the latter half of the 1990s,' he said. And the cumulative loss of income would be almost 30,000 Canadian dollars (about 29,259.7 U.S. dollars) for every Canadian, he added. Carney noted that the imperatives needed to be done to address these challenges were to improve Canada's productivity from the domestic aspect, and carry out G-20 framework from the international end. Core framework policies should be supplemented by measures to foster innovation and commercialization, investments in strategic infrastructure, and incentives for scale to boost Canada's productivity. And the current global financial sector reform efforts to yield a stable and efficient financial system channeling the capital necessary for long-run growth was also crucial, Carney said. As for the G-20 framework, Carney said: 'Policy-makers must work to ensure that business can operate, as much as possible, in an open and stable global economy. At a minimum, this means living up to the G-20 commitment to resist trade and financial protectionism. More proactively, it means substantial reforms to build a more resilient, open, global financial system. Ultimately, as I will discuss in a moment, securing strong, sustainable, and balanced global growth will also require changes in behavior and policy adjustments on several fronts.' 'The twin challenges of boosting Canadian productivity and of implementing the G-20 framework globally are daunting,' he acknowledged. 'But the gains are considerable.' Carney stressed that the Bank of Canada is committed to tackling these important issues. 'We have a broad research agenda on productivity. We are working with our domestic and international partners to reform the global financial system. We are active participants in G-20 framework discussions, not merely because they offer the best outcome for the global economy but also because they are in Canada's interests,' he said. In concluding, the governor noted that, most fundamentally, the bank has an unwavering commitment to price stability. 