Freeland, Yellen to speak about joint efforts to combat soaring global inflation

Photo: The Canadian Press

Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland (left) meets with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (second right) in Toronto, on Monday, June 20, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen are expected to speak about joint efforts to combat soaring inflation as well as the ongoing war in Ukraine at a joint news conference.

The pair is scheduled to speak in downtown Toronto this afternoon, marking Yellen’s first trip to Canada as secretary of the treasury.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury says Freeland and Yellen will discuss “urgent issues,” such as bolstering supply chains to avoid bottlenecks that can cost consumers on both sides of the border.

At a speech on Friday, Freeland said the current volatile and uncertain economic time is largely driven by a challenging global environment.

She called skyrocketing inflation a “global phenomenon” that is being driven by lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing lockdowns in China and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Last month, Statistics Canada reported the inflation rate for April rose 6.8 per cent compared with a year ago. That’s the highest since January 1991 but is lower than Britain, Germany and the United States.