The Bank of Canada is widely expected to leave the policy rate unchanged at 5% next week, with the market (at the time of writing) only pricing about 4bp of easing – roughly equivalent to a 15% chance of a 25bp rate cut. Since the 6 March policy meeting, the economy has recorded strong jobs numbers and a larger than expected 0.6%MoM increase in GDP for January. But at the same time, inflation has surprised to the downside and the unemployment rate has actually increased as the labour force expands through high rates of immigration. As for sales, the BoC’s business survey reports the outlook remains “subdued”. We ... (full story)