A single rate, set eight times a year
The Bank of Canada works with one interest rate: the policy interest rate, the rate it sets as its target for overnight lending between banks. Where some central banks announce a range and let the market rate settle inside it, the Bank of Canada names a single figure, and that figure is the number reported when a decision is announced.
One number, not a range
A single rate is easier to state than a range, but it does the same underlying job: it is the anchor the Bank uses to influence what borrowing and saving cost more broadly across the economy. When the Bank raises, lowers, or holds this rate, it is adjusting that one anchor.
Eight dates, fixed in advance
The Bank publishes its schedule of interest rate announcements for the year ahead, and there are eight of them. Because the dates are fixed, anyone following the decision, a borrower checking a mortgage renewal or a reporter filing on the day, knows in advance exactly when the next one falls.
The glossary entry for policy rate sets out how the term is used across the central banks this site covers, and the guide on how to read a central bank's own words works through what to look for in the statement released alongside a decision like this one.
Bank of Canada versus Federal Reserve: the published record
Both records cover a rate decision, a statement, a record of the deliberations behind it, and a forecast document, but the two banks name and structure each piece differently.
| Document | Bank of Canada | Federal Reserve |
|---|---|---|
| Rate decisionA single figure and a range are not interchangeable when comparing the two banks' stance. | States a single policy interest rate, announced on scheduled dates set for the year | States a target range for the federal funds rate, decided at each FOMC meeting |
| Accompanying statementNeither statement is a full transcript of the discussion behind it. | A short statement released alongside the rate decision, giving the Governing Council's reasoning | A statement released with the target range, followed later by a press conference |
| Record of deliberationsNeither record attributes specific remarks to a named participant. | A published summary of the Governing Council's discussion, released after the decision | Minutes of the FOMC meeting, released after the meeting |
| Forecast documentThe Bank of Canada publishes one forecast; the Federal Reserve publishes a range across participants rather than a single line. | The Monetary Policy Report, setting out the Bank's own forecast for growth and inflation | The Summary of Economic Projections (SEP), setting out the range of projections submitted by individual FOMC participants |
This sets out how the two published records line up by document type. It is a guide to what to expect from each, not a substitute for checking the current schedule and wording on each bank's own site.
Reading the Monetary Policy Report
The Monetary Policy Report is the document where the Bank of Canada explains the reasoning behind a rate decision. The short statement released alongside a decision gives you the new policy rate and a paragraph of explanation; the report gives you the fuller picture behind that paragraph, including the Bank's outlook for growth and inflation and the assumptions it built that outlook on.
What the report actually contains
Inside, you'll find the Bank's projections for economic growth and inflation over the next several quarters, a discussion of what is driving those numbers (household spending, exports, the labour market), and a section on risks: the specific things the Bank names as capable of pushing its own forecast off course. That risks section is worth reading closely, because it tells you what the Bank itself is watching.
What to compare after each announcement
The useful exercise is comparing the new report against the one before it. Ask what changed in the growth and inflation projections, whether the language describing risks got more or less cautious, and whether a factor that was central to the last report has been dropped or downgraded in this one. A projection that barely moved tells you the Bank sees no reason to shift its story; one that moved a lot tells you something in the data changed its mind.
The report is written in fairly plain terms for a document its readers rarely reach for. Where a specific mechanism behind a term used in the report isn't clear, the Central Banking Glossary covers the vocabulary that recurs across these documents, and the guide to reading a central bank's own words covers what a statement, minutes, and a projection document each do and how they differ.
Where each document sits in the published record
Everything else on this page traces back to something the Bank of Canada has published itself, under its own name.
The rate announcement and its statement
Each fixed announcement date produces a short statement giving the policy interest rate the Bank has set and the reasoning behind it. It is released at the moment of the decision, on the Bank of Canada's own site, alongside the schedule of dates still to come that year.
The Monetary Policy Report
Four of the eight announcements each year are accompanied by a longer document, the Monetary Policy Report, which carries the Bank's outlook for growth and inflation in more detail than the statement itself sets out. It is published with the announcement it belongs to, under the same date.
The record of deliberations
A written account of the discussion behind a given decision follows the announcement itself, so a reader can set what was said on the day against the reasoning that produced it.
A reader working through How to Read a Central Bank's Own Words will recognise the same shape of document in the Federal Reserve's own record, covered on The Federal Reserve: Who Decides What, though the two central banks work to different schedules and call their documents by different names.