The key story from the last Bank of Canada's policy meeting in January was the removal of the line, the Bank “remains prepared to raise the policy rate further if needed” from the accompanying statement. Nonetheless, there was little inclination to back the growing market expectations of interest rate cuts. The statement reiterated that “the Council is still concerned about risks to the outlook for inflation, particularly the persistence in underlying inflation” with the annual rate of CPI expected to slow only “gradually… returning to the 2% target in 2025”. The data since then has shown GDP coming in hotter for 4Q, ... (full story)