Press conference from Bank of Canada Governor Poloz:

  • There's 'no doubt' we've had a mild contraction
  • Economic developments 'quite disappointing'
  • Canadian economy has been below capacity for some time
  • Canadian economy less likely to be in synch with US than in past
  • Canadian economy had a mild contraction in H1
  • There's 'no doubt' we've had a mild contraction
  • Won't get into debate about Canadian recession
  • The facts have changed quite quickly in the last 2-3 months
  • One of the big changes is the downgrade of investment intentions in the oil change
  • Oil investment will fall 40% this year vs 30% estimate prior
  • BOC thought oil prices would rebound
  • Quite surprised that after weather improved non-energy exports failed to improve
  • BOC still has many tools it could use; our expectation is that using them will be unnecessary
  • If we're disappointed, we have other tools in the toolkit
  • Forward guidance is in the toolkit, it would normally be the next kind of tool the BOC could use
  • Quantitative easing is among the BOC's tools
  • Wouldn't describe Wednesday's decision as 'close'

Watch the press conference and Q&A here.

The most important part of the press conference so far is him saying that they don't expect to cut more.