Interest rates are staying steady as the Bank of Canada tries to bring the targeted inflation rate to two per cent. 

The Bank of Canada announced recently that it is keeping its key interest rate at 0.25 per cent. 

Local financial consultant Aaron Ruston of Purposed Financial talked about the impact it will have. 

“Particularly now with the COVID situation and all of the other negative impacts, the oil issues that we had a while ago, just the world events going on, lowered interest rates mean people will go out and borrow,” he said. 

The central bank also announced it would continue buying $4 billion in bonds per week to help further reduce interest rates. 

Ruston went on to explain what happened decades again when the interest rates shot up. 

“In 1981, it was 17.93 per cent and the prime rate was 19.29. So, times people were hurting. The interest rates were very high and it's actually indicative of why we saw many companies and many individuals after that get into some real financial problems.” 

The bank doesn’t expect the inflation rate to get to the two per cent target until some time in 2023. 

This is expected to be the Bank of Canada’s final interest rate decision for 2020, after having slashed rates because of the COVID-19 pandemic.