The Financial Post reports in its Friday edition that last December, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem warned that we may experience bumps while riding an economic roller-coaster on our way to achieve 2-per-cent inflation. The Post's Robert McLister writes that similarly, U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell also predicted a bumpy ride to reach the 2-per-cent target. However, most people either ignored these warnings or did not pay much attention to them. On Wednesday, we hit another bump, but not in Canada. The bump occurred south of the border, where the U.S. inflation rate reached 3.5 per cent, which was 0.3 percentage point higher than the previous month and exceeded the forecasted rate. This news was disappointing for economists and low-rate hopefuls, who were expecting the BOC to announce rate cuts and lower yields during Wednesday's meeting. Although the BOC did reassure us about rate relief, the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) drama overshadowed it. Given the Canadian mortgage market is hitched to the U.S. star, it begs two questions. First, how likely is it that March U.S. inflation is more than just a bump in the road? And second, how likely is it that Canadian inflation will follow suit?