By Erik Hertzberg<\/p>\n
(Bloomberg) \u2014 Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said central banks around the world are positioned differently when it comes to economic slack and inflation, and their responses to the oil price shock are likely to vary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all feeling like you don\u2019t want to jump too early and raise interest rates and lower growth, particularly when growth is already weak,\u201d Macklem told reporters in a callback from his meetings at the International Monetary Fund in Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the other hand, you don\u2019t want to be late and let inflation get a hold and get entrenched.\u201d<\/p>\n
At their March meeting, policymakers led by Macklem said they saw inflation close to the 2% target, the economy in excess supply and weren\u2019t expecting to see a rapid pass-through of higher energy prices to goods and services.<\/p>\n
The bank held the policy rate at 2.25% at that meeting, saying it would look through the initial price shock from higher oil, but was prepared to act if it saw spreading second-round effects, particularly in core inflation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Macklem also said he expects a \u201clarge\u201d headline inflation figure when Statistics Canada reports the March data on Monday, though he still sees the rate below 3%, the top of the central bank\u2019s target range.<\/p>\n
While a de-anchoring of medium and longer-term inflation expectations would be troubling, Macklem said it makes sense that firms and consumers are expecting an immediate jump in prices because of the oil shock, especially through gasoline.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not surprised and we\u2019re not even that worried if we see near-term inflation expectations going up,\u201d he said. At the same time, he noted that people may be more sensitive to inflation after the recent spike in prices after COVID-19. \u201cTheir expectations could shift faster,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Combined, the comments suggest the central bank wants more evidence on how higher energy prices will pass through to broader inflationary pressures before adjusting borrowing costs. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect the central bank to hold borrowing costs steady through 2026, but markets are pricing at least one rate hike.<\/p>\n
Macklem also said he spoke to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell about the U.S. approach to Anthropic PBC\u2019s Mythos artificial-intelligence model. The Bank of Canada governor also heads a key committee of the Financial Stability Board, and it is gathering information from members about the risks posed by the platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s early days, and I don\u2019t think anybody knows the full implications at this point. That\u2019s precisely what everybody\u2019s trying to get to the bottom of,\u201d Macklem said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a92026 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n
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Anthropic<\/a> Bank of Canada<\/a> bloomberg<\/a> BoC<\/a> central banks<\/a> interest rates<\/a> rate hikes<\/a> tiff macklem<\/a><\/p>\n Last modified: April 18, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Erik Hertzberg (Bloomberg) \u2014 Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said central banks around the world are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-613169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}