The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday, April 17, edition that Canada is likely to lower interest rates before the U.S. due to weaker price pressures, leading to divergent monetary policies. The Globe's Matt Lundy writes that in Canada, the consumer price index rose 2.9 per cent in March from a year earlier, Statistics Canada reported on Tuesday. While inflation ticked up from 2.8 per cent in February, The Globe says this outcome was widely anticipated by analysts because of higher gasoline prices. Several measures of core inflation continued to slow in March. Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem on Tuesday said: "Measures of core inflation did tick down again and that does suggest that underlying inflationary pressures are continuing to ease. We continue to be moving in the right direction." On Tuesday Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell struck a different tone about the path of inflation in the U.S. The Fed has maintained that it needs "greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 per cent before it would be appropriate to ease policy." Mr. Powell said that recent data "indicate that it's likely to take longer than expected to achieve that confidence."