The central bank should maintain its existing monetary policy and slowly exit from its quantitative easing programme, a smaller sample of economists said. "If the BoC does not follow the Fed towards greater flexibility, a relatively tighter policy stance could become counterproductive to maintaining inflation and economic stability," said Beata Caranci, chief economist at TD. "The BoC's behaviour – as reflected in measures of inflation expectations – has been more akin to treating 2% as the ceiling even after prolonged periods of undershooting," said Derek Holt, head of capital markets economics at Scotiabank.