Canada's key interest rate is expected to stay right where it is when the Bank of Canada issues its new rate policy Tuesday morning, economists say.

Every expert surveyed by the major news agencies agrees: the overnight rate will still be at 4.25 per cent after the 9 a.m. ET announcement. Most expect no changes until at least the summer and some expect no change for the rest of the year.

If that happens, it would be the sixth successive meeting at which the key lending rate has not moved.

At the last gathering of the central bank's interest rate brain trust in January, the statement that accompanied the "steady as she goes" rate announcement judged that the "risks to the [Bank's] inflation projection are roughly balanced."

But an analysis from BMO Capital Markets senior economist Michael Gregory said "the downside risk coming from U.S. economic growth has risen" since then.

Gregory cited the fall in the risky sub-prime mortgage market, the current volatility in global equity markets, and the big declines in the U.S. housing market in January, among other reasons. 

"As such, the risks to the Bank’s projection appear to have increased, with the possibility that they might be starting to tilt to the downside for growth [because of the U.S.]," he writes. "How the [Bank of Canada's] Governing Council might craft this message is unclear, as the Bank probably wants to avoid stoking expectations of rate cuts at this stage."

The C.D. Howe Institute's monetary policy council called for the central bank to hold the line on its benchmark interest rate. 

"Most members expected that a weak fourth quarter of 2006 had left the level of output in Canada close to capacity, and that the resulting stable outlook for inflation would — after allowing for transitory effects from energy prices and last year’s GST cut — produce an inflation rate very close to the Bank's target," it said in a statement.