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After a year of weakness, Canada’s economy is showing signs of improvement. Growth is expected to pick up, and inflation eases gradually from its recent peak. Uncertainty is still high.

Bordo and Redish examine the evolution of central banking over the past 70 years and identify periods where Canada was either a notable innovator with regard to central banking practices or appeared to be following a slightly different course. They note that global forces seemed to play an important role in determining inflation outcomes throughout the 70-year period, and that Canada and the United States experienced roughly similar inflation rates despite some important differences in their monetary policy regimes. Canada, for example, was comparatively late in establishing a central bank, launching the Bank of Canada long after most other industrial countries had one. Canada also operated under a flexible exchange rate through much of the Bretton Woods period, unlike any other country in the 1950s and early 1960s; adopted inflation targets well before most other central banks; and introduced a number of other innovative changes with regard to the implementation of monetary policy in the 1990s.

The paper reviews evidence from the economic literature on the nature of the relationship between excess capacity and inflation, better known as the Phillips curve. In particular, we examine the linearity of this relationship. This is an important issue in the current economic context in which advanced economies are approaching or exceed their potential output.

In the first, mostly theoretical, part of this article, the author analyses the factors that affect the pass-through of exchange rate movements to consumer prices. In the second part, she studies the recent Canadian experience in this area, starting from 1992. The analysis in the first part of the article is used to investigate why the depreciation of the Canadian dollar by almost 20 per cent between 1992 and 1994 did not produce as much of an increase in the inflation rate as predicted by conventional estimates of the exchange rate pass-through. The author first explains this phenomenon using the factors described in the theoretical part of the article: demand conditions, the costs of adjusting prices, and expectations about the depreciation's duration. She then examines the role of more specific factors, such as the abolition of customs duties on trade between Canada and the United States and the restructuring of the retail market. It is clear that the latter two factors helped neutralize the effect of the depreciation on prices.

Historically, rapid and unsustainable increases in the demand for goods and services originating within the economies of Canada's major trading partners have had a significant impact on the domestic economy. These episodes are typically characterized by increases in world commodity prices and by a tightening of monetary conditions abroad to contain inflationary pressures. In this article, the author uses the Bank's quarterly projection model (QPM) (described in the autumn 1994 issue of the Review) to trace the mechanisms that transmit these foreign developments throughout the Canadian economy. In addition, he outlines the response that is required from domestic monetary authorities to maintain a target rate of inflation.

In particular, the Governor discussed how the Bank of Canada aims to promote economic growth by means of a monetary policy symmetrically focused on a 2 per cent inflation target. "We pay equal attention to any significant movement away from 2 per cent - whether above or below," Mr. Dodge said. In contrast, the European Central Bank has an inflation-control ceiling of 2 per cent, he noted.

Results of the fourth-quarter 2025 survey show that concerns over high prices and economic uncertainty related to the trade conflict continue to have a negative impact on consumers. As a result, even though labour market conditions improved somewhat, the CSCE indicator declined slightly. Expectations for near-term inflation remain higher than they were before the pandemic, while those for long-term inflation eased below pre-pandemic levels.

Governor Tiff Macklem speaks about the Bank of Canada’s monetary policy framework review and the agreement between the Government of Canada and the Bank to renew the 2 percent inflation target.

Global growth has been resilient. But the historic rise in US tariffs is reshaping global trade, weighing on prospects for global growth and pushing up inflation in the United States.

The Bank of Canada today released its Update to the April Monetary Policy Report. The Update discusses current economic and financial trends in the context of Canada's inflation-control strategy.