9 August 2019

“A significant weakening in domestic performance is necessary for Poloz to change the direction”, – noted Dominique Lapointe, an economist at Laurentian Bank. “We’ll have to see later how strongly the global tensions may lead to lower business investment and exports in Canada.”

According to Bloomberg, 9 out of the 15 economists polled predict no rate changes until the end of 2020. Toronto Dominion, Bank of Montreal, Scotiabank, National Bank and Laurentian also expect Poloz to keep the rate unchanged next year.

However, six analysts still believe there will be at least one cut during that period, caused by the growing U.S.-China trade tension which put the global growth outlook under threat and which has already made the Federal Reserve cut the rate last week.

In RBC’s opinion, Poloz will cut the rate in Q1 of 2010, while CIBC also moved its forecasts to the same period. Capital Economics sees the BoC reducing the rate to 1% by the end of the next year.

Robert Kavcic, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, believes there’s one more reason for the Bank not to follow the downward trend. “Do they really want to go back to 2015, when the rate cuts led to strong acceleration in credit and real estate prices? They still remember that”, – he noted. “I’m not sure if they want to get back there again”.

A new activity acceleration at many Canadian housing markets and one of the strongest results for wage growth in a decade (even amid the slowing main employment) could also support the consumption in the second half of the year.