Toronto 
Last December, the Bank of Canada increased the overnight rate to 4¼% marking the seventh rate increase of 2022.
With the December 7th hike, the interest rates have been at their highest since 2008.
In 2022, inflation increased from 5.1% in January 2022 to 8.1% in July before reducing to 6.9% in November 2022.
December 2022 inflation will be released on January 12th, 2023.
| CPI | CPI excluding food and energy | |
|---|---|---|
| December 2021 | 4.8 | 3.4 |
| January 2022 | 5.1 | 3.5 |
| February 2022 | 5.7 | 3.9 |
| March 2022 | 6.7 | 4.6 |
| April 2022 | 6.8 | 4.6 |
| May 2022 | 7.7 | 5.2 |
| June 2022 | 8.1 | 5.3 |
| July 2022 | 7.6 | 5.5 |
| August 2022 | 7.0 | 5.3 |
| September 2022 | 6.9 | 5.4 |
| October 2022 | 6.9 | 5.3 |
| November 2022 | 6.8 | 5.4 |
According to the 2023 Canada’s Food Price Report, food prices will continue to increase by as much as 5% to 7%.
To combat high inflation, the central bank increased the policy rate by a total of four percentage points since March of 2022.
| Date | Overnight rate (%) | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|
| December 7, 2022 | 4.25 | +0.50 |
| October 26, 2022 | 3.75 | +0.50 |
| September 7, 2022 | 3.25 | +0.75 |
| July 13, 2022 | 2.50 | +1.00 |
| June 1, 2022 | 1.50 | +0.50 |
| April 13, 2022 | 1.00 | +0.50 |
| March 2, 2022 | 0.50 | +0.25 |
| January 26, 2022 | 0.25 | — |
As the Bank of Canada is committed to achieving a 2% inflation target and restoring price stability, the central bank will be assessing how much tighter monetary policy will need to be and whether the policy interest rate needs to rise further to bring supply and demand back into balance and return inflation to target.
The scheduled dates for announcing the overnight rate changes are as follows:
- Wednesday, January 25
- Wednesday, March 8
- Wednesday, April 12
- Wednesday, June 7
- Wednesday, July 12
- Wednesday, September 6
- Wednesday, October 25
- Wednesday, December 6
On January 25th, April 12th and October 25th, the Bank of Canada will also publish the quarterly Monetary Policy Report.
The rate changes will affect mortgages, lines of credit, monetary loans and savings accounts.
