It’s impossible to think of the 2020s without considering the far-reaching impacts of the pandemic, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global supply shortages and a red-hot housing market. Between 2014 and March 2020, the overnight target was between 0.5% and 1.75%. And then almost overnight, the entire world shutdown, forcing central banks to cut rates to stave off deflation. On March 16, 2020 the BoC slashed the key rate by 50 basis points, then by another 25 basis points on March 27, bringing the overnight rate to a low of 0.25%. In July 2020, Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem told Canadians that interest rates will remain low “for a long time.”
However, by March 2022, the BoC was now facing inflationary pressures, with CPI rising from 5.1% at the start of 2022 to reach a 41-year peak of 8.1% in June, forcing the Bank to raise interest rates 10 times by…
