OTTAWA - The consensus is building that Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney is getting ready to start raising interest rates in two weeks.
Analysts believe Carney will start raising rates modestly by a quarter of a percentage point June 1 and keep moving them higher incrementally throughout the year.
Questions about the wisdom of such a move were raised earlier this month after financial markets reacted negatively to Europe's debt woes.
But with each day that markets appear to be stabilizing, the more important factor eyed by the central bank will be Friday's inflation data from Statistics Canada.
Economists say it will take a shock, either on inflation or Europe, to persuade Carney not to raise rates June 1.
The bank's policy rate has been at virtual zero -- 0.25 per cent -- for more than a year.
That has helped Canada avert the worst of the recession, but now with inflation nearing the bank's target two-per-cent annual rate, and the economy rebounding strongly, there's no more justification for such low interest rates, economists say.
The problem is that the U.S. is headed in the opposite direction with inflation trending downward, so the central bank there could stay at zero until the next year.
