The C.D. Howe Institute’s Monetary Policy Council is recommending that the Bank of Canada lower its target for the overnight interest rate by 50 basis points to 1% at its next announcement on Jan. 20, the committee said Thursday.

The central bank’s key rate is now at a 50-year low of 1.5%

“The median call for a 50 basis-point cut in the overnight rate target was prompted mainly by recent indicators that weakness in the Canadian economy has spread from the trade sector to household spending and the labour market, and that businesses’ assessments of the growth outlook have turned sharply negative,” the committee said in a release.

“Several in that group felt that the risks of aggressive easing were considerably less than the risks of doing too little, since curbing inflation in the event that policy turned out to be too loose would be easier than remedying deflation if policy turned out to be too tight,” the committee added.

The committee is a panel sponsored by the C.D. Howe Institute to provide an independent assessment of the monetary stance most appropriate for the Bank of Canada as it seeks to achieve its 2% inflation target.