Uncertainty reigns as trade tensions, tax shifts cloud Bank of Canada's inflation outlook
April figures showed the annual inflation rate slowed sharply to 1.7 per cent, thanks largely to a drop in gasoline prices tied to the end of the consumer carbon price.
Benjamin Reitzes, BMO's managing director of Canadian rates and macro strategist, said he expects inflation cooled two ticks to 1.5 per cent in May. He pointed to a slowing in shelter inflation and a smaller jump in gas prices compared with the same time last year for the easing.
But it won't be just the headline number the Bank of Canada is parsing as it attempts to set its benchmark interest rate in an increasingly uncertain world.
'The reality is, they don't just look at one number. They look at a number of different inflation metrics to really try and figure out what the underlying trend is,' Reitzes said.
Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem called the current inflation picture 'complicated' in a speech to the St. John's Board of Trade in Newfoundland and Labrador on Wednesday.
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