WTI Crude Oil futures down, remain strong amid weak Chinese data. 12/16/24

Good afternoon. It’s a great pleasure to be back in Vancouver for my final speech of 2024. I want to thank the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade for inviting me. I’m particularly looking forward to our discussion after my remarks. Hearing from you is always the best part. As some of you will recall, I was here in Vancouver two years ago in December 2022. Inflation was close to 7%. We’d just raised the policy rate by 50 basis points to 4¼%, our seventh straight rate hike in our fight against inflation, and we signalled we would be considering increasing rates further. Indeed, we ended up raising our policy rate three more times to 5%. Today, inflation is back at our 2% target. Last week we cut our policy rate by 50 basis points to 3¼%, the fifth consecutive decrease since June. We’ve come a long way in the past two years. Monetary policy has worked to restore low inflation. Interest rates have come down substantially, and household spending has begun to pick up. But I am not here to give a victory speech. Price stability is low, stable inflation. Inflation is low once again; now we need to stabilize it around the 2% target. That’s price stability. That’s giving Canadians the confidence that their cost of living will not change materially year to year. Today I want to talk about delivering price stability for Canadians. I’ll start with the present—where the economy is today—and what we are focused on to keep inflation close to the 2% target. Then I will look back to learn from the past. We need to use the pandemic experience to prepare for future crises. post: BOC'S GOV. MACKLEM: THERE ARE RISKS AROUND OUR INFLATION OUTLOOK; WE ARE EQUALLY CONCERNED WITH INFLATION COMING IN HIGHER OR LOWER THAN EXPECTED.