The Financial Post reports in its Thursday, Feb. 8, edition that rising shelter costs are now the biggest contributor to above-target inflation, but Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said the central bank is powerless to address them. The Post's Denise Paglinawan writes that it was just one of the limits of monetary policy that Mr. Macklem outlined in a Tuesday speech before the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations about what the bank can and cannot do -- a topic that has taken on urgency as the public and policy-makers clamour for solutions to issues such as housing affordability. Mr. Macklem says housing affordability cannot be fixed by raising or lowering interest rates. He adds that shelter price inflation has been elevated for several years and increased further in the past six months. However, none of the underlying reasons behind the country's housing supply crunch can be addressed by monetary policy. He says while shelter price inflation partly reflects the impact of increases in the BOC's policy rate on mortgage interest costs, it also reflects increases in rents and other housing costs, which are more related to the shortage of housing. "That is not something monetary policy can fix."