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This Report presents the Bank of Canada’s assessment of the trend of inflation in Canada and explains the monetary policy actions deemed necessary to keep inflation within the Bank’s inflation-control target range.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an atypical recession in which some sectors of the economy boomed and others collapsed. This required a unique fiscal policy reaction to both support firms and stimulate activity in sectors with slack. Was fiscal policy able to get where it was needed? Mostly, yes.

At the time of last November’s Monetary Policy Report, two issues dominated the analysis: the global economic slowdown and the fallout from the September terrorist attacks.

The Canadian economy continues to grow at a solid pace, consistent with the Bank’s outlook in the January Monetary Policy Report Update.

The Canadian economy continues to adjust to developments in the global economy.

There have been a number of significant economic and financial developments since the time of the July Monetary Policy Report Update.

The present paper shows that, everything else equal, some transactions to transfer portfolio credit risk to third-party investors increase the insolvency risk of banks. This is particularly likely if a bank sells the senior tranche and retains a sufficiently large first-loss position.

In the last half-year, the economic expansion in Canada has become well established, supported by low inflation, highly stimulative monetary conditions, and a strong U.S. economy.

In the April Monetary Policy Report, the Bank noted that inflation was well above its 2 per cent target and that short-term inflation expectations had edged up.

The global economy has been unfolding largely as expected, and prospects for continued robust growth are quite favourable, especially over the near term.