Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem told an audience in Halifax on September 21 that unpredictability in trade policy could reverse economic progress Canada has made in recent years, according to StockKey. He made the remarks in the same week that the Canadian dollar touched its lowest point since August 5 against a resurgent US dollar, and just days before a further round of tariff measures is due to take effect on September 29.
Macklem’s language was notable for a central banker who typically favours careful, hedged phrasing. StockKey’s reporting frames his comments as an unusually direct acknowledgement that the trade relationship with the United States under President Donald Trump carries structural risk to Canada’s growth outlook, not merely short-term volatility. The same report notes that Trump has separately floated interest in Belarusian potash supplies, a detail StockKey ties into a broader picture of a autumn defined by trade complexity for Canadian exporters and policymakers alike.
A currency sliding before the tariffs even land
Market coverage from TMGM published the same day describes the Canadian dollar’s move to a fresh low as a technical development within a broader bullish trend for the US dollar, according to TMGM. TMGM’s analysis treats Macklem’s remarks as one input among several supporting a weaker loonie trade, alongside interest rate differentials and broader risk appetite in currency markets.
The Bank of Canada has maintained that a policy rate roughly 150 basis points below the US Federal Reserve’s target range is manageable given domestic inflation conditions. That framing raises a fair question. If the rate gap is manageable in isolation, it is less clear why the loonie’s slide is already showing up in higher import costs for Canadian households before the September 29 tariff expansion has even taken effect. A weaker currency raises the price of imported goods regardless of what happens at the border, and that effect compounds whatever tariffs add on top of it.
What officials say versus what the data shows
Central banks routinely describe their own policy stance as calibrated to conditions, and the Bank of Canada is no exception. But the timing of Macklem’s warning, delivered in the same week the currency hit a multi-week low, suggests the central bank itself may see more downside risk than its public messaging has fully conveyed. StockKey’s account of the Halifax remarks does not quote Macklem attaching a specific number to the risk, but it does report him linking trade unpredictability directly to the possibility of reversing gains the economy has made since the pandemic recovery.
How the outlets framed it
StockKey presented Macklem’s Halifax remarks as a rare and pointed admission from a central banker that trade-war unpredictability poses a structural threat to Canada’s economic progress, placing the comments alongside other signs of a difficult autumn, including reported US interest in Belarusian potash. TMGM’s market-desk report, published the same day, treated the identical remarks mainly as one supporting factor in a technical, bullish US dollar trade against the loonie, folding the political and economic stakes into a routine currency-pair update. The contrast shows how the same statement can be read either as a warning about the direction of the economy or as a footnote in a trading strategy, depending on which audience the outlet is writing for.
Neither outlet reports that Macklem specified a timeline for when trade unpredictability might materially reverse growth, nor did either report attribute a motive to Trump’s tariff plans beyond what was publicly stated. The open question for households is whether the Bank of Canada’s calibrated language about a manageable rate gap will hold once the September 29 tariff changes are layered onto a currency that was already weakening before they arrived.
