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OTTAWA — The Bank of Canada governor is not alone in warning that weak economic growth and low interest rates have been with us for far longer than anticipated, and that trend is unlikely to change any time soon.

It’s not just a domestic concern either, Stephen Poloz said Tuesday, but a global one that requires a lot of economic repairs across borders.

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But in an address in Quebec City, aptly titled “Living with Lower for Longer,” the governor offered that it doesn’t need to stay that way.

“Increasing potential output growth by even a few tenths of a percentage point would make an important difference to all these issue,” Poloz told a business audience.

“Raising potential output would boost the real neutral rate of interest and long-term interest rates, and it would increase returns on investments for savers and companies alike,” he said. “So, if there are policies that would boost potential output — the sum of labour force growth and productivity growth — then we need to pursue them.”

The governor insisted there are ways to turn the current “lower-for-longer” tide around.

For one, the Group of 20 industrial nations — which includes Canada — have been pursuing structural reforms as a “third leg of the policy stool” that is supported by monetary and fiscal policies.

The Bank of Canada has nearly exhausted options in its monetary tool kit.

Poloz and his governing counsel reduced their key interest rate to 0.5 per cent in July 2015, following a similar 25-basis-point cut in January of that year in response to the oil-price collapse. They have since resisted going any lower, choosing to see the effectiveness of the federal government’s initial stimulus spending program, focused mainly on infrastructure projects with promises of more money to come over the next 10 years.