The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday, May 25, edition that the gaping hole where inflation is supposed to be is the lone obstacle left on the road to the Bank of Canada's first interest-rate increase since 2010. The Globe's David Parkinson writes that the BOC's latest rate announcement issued Wednesday (wherein it kept rates at 0.5 per cent), struck a notably upbeat tone. The brief statement turned some of the BOC's most persistent frowns upside down. Notably, the BOC declared the economy's long adjustment to the 2014 oil price collapse "largely completed." Business investment is now "encouraging." The housing sector was described as a source of increasingly broad-based strength supported by a strong job market. Government policy measures aimed at the housing market are "contributing to more sustainable debt profiles." The bank continued to worry about export growth, calling it "subdued" and blaming Canada's "ongoing competitiveness challenges." However, with exports up a strong 7 per cent annualized in the first quarter, with a lower Canadian dollar, and with stronger projected U.S. and global growth on the horizon, this one note of negativity sounds a bit misplaced.