Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem told reporters on Thursday that there will be no recession..According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Macklem quickly changed his comments to clarify that there might be a "technical recession," but it might not be what most Canadians “think of when they think of a recession.”.“I don’t think we are in a recession,” said Macklem..“Where we are headed, of course, no one can know the future for certain.”.“What are we expecting? We are expecting low, positive growth,” said Macklem. .“If you take the average of the last three quarters, growth’s been a little less than 1%. We’ll put out a new forecast in late October. I expect it will be something around the recent trend for the next few quarters before it picks up once again.”.“Is that a recession? No, that is not a recession,” said Macklem. .“But I will say if you are forecasting very small positives, you can’t rule out that you could get a couple of small negatives.”.“Some people might call that a technical recession,” said Macklem. .“I don’t think a couple of very small negatives are what most people think of when they think of a recession.”.Macklem said he understood ten successive interest rate increases are “certainly squeezing some Canadians and making life more difficult.” .The Bank is scheduled to release its next rate announcement and Monetary Policy Report on October 25th..“We don’t want to make it any more difficult than it has to be, but we do require higher interest rates to lower inflation,” said Macklem. .“If we hadn’t raised interest rates, inflation would be a much bigger problem.”.On November 1, Macklem in testimony at the Senate Banking committee acknowledged Bank forecasts were frequently wrong. .“It’s not like we got everything right,” said Macklem..The Bank in 2020 predicted inflation would “remain less than 2% in 2023” and that interest rates would not rise. .“We are being unusually clear that interest rates are going to be low for a long time,” Governor Macklem told reporters on July 15, 2020..Macklem in 2020 also predicted “the pandemic will have largely run its course by the middle of 2022.” And the Bank in 2021 maintained “the inflation we’re observing right now is very likely to be transitory.”.Macklem testified before the Commons Finance committee on February 16, stating that he did anticipate a mild recession..“We don’t have a crystal ball,” said Macklem..“You say ‘recession’ they think big job losses, very, very painful,” testified Macklem. .“We are expecting growth to be around zero. That does mean we could have two or three-quarters of small negative growth.”.David Dodge, a former Bank governor and retired deputy finance minister, told the Senate Banking committee last September 22 that Bank of Canada comments were “not very helpful” through the pandemic. .“I think there were big mistakes made,” said Dodge..“Do you think the central bank talks too much?” asked Senator Clément Gignac (QC).. “I think it’s very hard to give guidance other than to say, ‘We’re going to watch and see what happens,’” replied Dodge.
