After the Bank of Canada's October’s announcement that it would immediately end QE and move forward guidance for the timing of the first-rate hike to mid-2022, we changed our forecast to predicting four rate hikes next year – one in each quarter. After all, the economy is growing strongly, employment is at record highs and inflation is soon going to breach 5%. However, the emergence of the Omicron variant is a cause for concern that could result in some consumer caution that negatively impacts the near-term growth profile. Consequently, we expect the BoC to tread carefully this week and leave policy unchanged. They ... (full story)