CANADA — The Bank of Canada expects to revise its inflation forecast significantly higher this month because oil and petroleum-product prices remain elevated, Governor Tiff Macklem said Saturday, October 17, according to Reuters.

His warning concerns the outlook for prices. It is not an announcement of a new interest rate or a published numerical forecast.

Global resilience faces a longer test

The Canadian Press reported that Macklem, speaking to journalists from the International Monetary Fund meetings in Bangkok, said the world economy had withstood recent wars and trade disruptions better than expected.

But prolonged shocks were testing that resilience, he said. He also warned that releasing oil reserves cannot be repeated indefinitely without replenishing them.

What has been decided — and what has not

The Bank’s last scheduled decision, on September 2, left its overnight policy-rate target at 2.25 per cent. That statement already identified a risk that sustained energy costs could spread into the prices of other goods and services.

The next scheduled rate announcement is October 28 at 9:45 a.m. Eastern, alongside the quarterly Monetary Policy Report. The Bank’s current event listing confirms that timetable; it does not disclose the decision in advance.

Statistics Canada’s release calendar lists October 19 for the September Consumer Price Index. Those results are still pending. A forecast of inflation and a measurement of prices already observed are different things, and neither should be presented as the other.

For Canadian readers, the next checkpoints are the official inflation release and the Bank’s subsequent assessment. Saturday’s remarks do not establish a specific change to anyone’s mortgage rate, nor a guaranteed policy move.

Sources: Reuters, October 17 at 10:01 a.m. Eastern; The Canadian Press via Durham Radio News, October 17; Bank of Canada’s September 2 decision; October 28 event listing; Statistics Canada’s release calendar.

Bank of Canada building in Ottawa, viewed from Bank Street on April 15, 2017, by Jeangagnon / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0; resized. File photograph, not the Bangkok media event.