Negative interest rates are now on the table, but Canada’s central banker insisted Tuesday they’re unlikely to be implemented even as oil prices, the loonie and the stock market plunged for the second day in a row.

Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz unveiled the bank’s new “Framework for Conducting Monetary Policy At Low Interest Rates” — which included tools such as quantitative easing and negative interest rates in its arsenal after examining similar moves from its global peers during the financial crisis.

Negative interest effectively charges customers for deposits, discouraging saving and encouraging spending.

Such measures would only be used “in the unlikely event that the economy was hit with another major negative shock,” such as another global financial crisis, Poloz said during a speech to the Empire Club of Canada Tuesday.

Poloz said the revision had nothing to do with dramatic oil prices drops this week, which have fallen further below $40 a barrel to a seven-year low. That pushed the loonie down to 73.60 cents U.S. Tuesday, a level last seen in June 2004.

The economic rebound is taking longer than the bank thought it would in 2008, but “there are clear signs our recovery is underway,” Poloz said. “Canada’s outlook is encouraging” he said, maintaining the bank’s forecast for steady economic growth in 2016 and return to full capacity by mid-2017.

The low interest rate and slow economic growth environment give the bank little manoeuvreability to stimulate the economy in the event of another crisis. So in order to create more room, the central bank will now consider minus 0.5 per cent its new floor for interest rates, below the 0.25 per cent rate reached in 2009.

Poloz said the bank is confident that Canadian markets could survive a negative rate environment after studying the fallout from the move to negative rates at the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank.

Still, Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at CMC Markets, doesn’t believe negative interest rates will ever be implemented.

“I wouldn’t expect to see it in this country. We’ve gone through weak periods with the oil price before and not had to resort to that. It is a real emergency measure.”

The Bank of Canada included other unconventional policy measures in its framework, including delivering forward-looking guidance on its rate path in order to reduce uncertainty. It used that tool in 2009, when it pledged to keep the key policy rate unchanged for a year.

Another tool the bank said it would consider, but has never used, is large-scale asset purchases, known as quantitative easing, in which the central bank buys up securities to free up cash for banks to lend to consumers.

The U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks used the tool in the aftermath of the recent recession.

One last tool the bank added is the ability to provide funding to ensure credit is available in key economic sectors during times of crisis.

Poloz dismissed questions about whether this week’s oil price drop changes the bank’s outlook, saying it prefers to look at longer-term trends rather than react to short-term events.

He added that the oil price shock includes both positives and negatives for the economy. While lower oil prices have led to a slowdown and layoffs in Canada’s oilpatch, the corresponding depreciation in the loonie is a boon for exports.

Poloz believes the positive impacts, such as improved consumer purchasing power, take longer to trickle through the economy, while the negative impacts have been very apparent, driving the economy into recession in the first part of 2015.

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“The lower Canadian dollar and the interest rate actions taken earlier this year are working and it will be some time before we see their full impact,” he said.

Poloz had to walk a fine line during his speech “given the simultaneous release of the updated unconventional policy tool kit, and weaker economic momentum heading into the fourth quarter,” observed TD economist Brian DePratto.

– With files from Dana Flavelle.