The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition that the Bank of Canada is mulling both upside and downside risks to the economy as it calibrates the pace of interest rate cuts. The Post's Jordan Gowling writes that the central bank's governing council weighed two scenarios before cutting the policy rate by 25 basis points to 4.25 per cent on Sept. 4. One scenario addressed the possibility that rate cuts would spur housing activity, leading to a faster-than-anticipated economic rebound. The other scenario worried the economy and employment might not pick up as expected, leading to a need for steeper interest rate cuts. Governor Tiff Macklem has left the door open for steeper cuts if growth does not pick up. Preliminary data from Statistics Canada suggest the economy began to stall in June and July. A summary of the central bank's thinking says: "[BOC policy-makers] agreed this posed some downside risk to the forecast that growth would pick up later in the year. Governing Council members agreed they would like to see the economy grow at a rate above potential output to begin taking up slack in the Canadian economy so that inflation does not fall too much and instead settles close to the 2 per cent target."