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“Luckily, it’s not a financial-market driven, or a financial-meltdown driven, shock,” he added. “That tells me that if we can get through this, and that’s the sort of the public health side, then I think we can come back fairly quickly and we don’t have to have the long rebuilding of balance sheets that we had post 2008-2009.”

The relative stability of the banking system has allowed the Bank of Canada to fight a guerrilla war, rather than relying on interest-rate cuts alone to offset the economic damage from the crisis.

Governor Stephen Poloz and his deputies slashed interest rates by a full percentage point in less than two weeks, dropping the benchmark rate to 0.75 per cent. Many analysts and investors predict Canada’s official rate is headed to at least 0.25 per cent, and maybe even zero, matching the U.S. Federal Reserve’s move earlier this month.

Those moves are likely. But one reason the Bank of Canada hasn’t had to rush to zero is that it has developed ways to calm specific markets that are showing signs of stress. The strategy allows policy-makers to save their biggest gun — the benchmark interest rate — for when things go really bad.