The Financial Post reports in its Thursday, May 18, edition that pressure is building on the Bank of Canada to signal an interest-rate hike. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe reports that the BOC has kept its rate at or below 1 per cent since 2009 in an effort to stimulate an economy that had struggled to gain traction since the global financial crisis. However, house prices have more than doubled over the period in the two biggest markets, Toronto and Vancouver, and a closely watched measure of a country's vulnerability to debt, the household debt-to-income ratio, has risen to a record high 167 per cent. Economists worry that leaving low rates in place for too long could encourage too much borrowing and leave the economy vulnerable if growth slows or house prices drop, while investors have seized on recent hints of risks to financial stability. Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Carolos Capistrn says, "The way you reduce the pace of credit growth and eventually solve the problem of high leverage is by having higher rates, not by keeping rates low. It is painful for the economy when you start tightening but you have to do it at some point. Otherwise, leverage is going to keep increasing."