The U.S. Federal Reserve is getting ready for another round of quantitative easing, and that may push the Bank of Canada to halt its rate hikes, too, say Bay Street economists.

The latest minutes from the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee released Tuesday “reveal a downwardly revised economic forecast and a growing consensus that slack will remain in the U.S. economy for a prolonged period of time,” observes TD Economics. It notes that the members of the Fed are concerned about the state of the U.S. job market, and that inflation is too low, although they still don’t seem to believe that deflation is likely.

Nevertheless, TD notes that there is broad support for additional monetary stimulus through additional longer-term Treasury purchases if “economic growth remained too slow to make satisfactory progress toward reducing the unemployment rate or if inflation continued to come in below levels consistent with the FOMC’s dual mandate.”

RBC Economics points out that while the minutes discussed additional purchases of longer-term Treasuries, “there was no firm announcement about the details of how [a second round of quantitative easing] would be implemented or the factors that would be used to guide its course.”

“These minutes reveal that the Fed is prepared to further ease policy. However, there appears to remain a lively internal debate about the timing and magnitude of additional stimulus measures,” TD concludes. It says that markets are now expecting a second round of quantitative easing at the next meeting on November 3, and it believes that the Fed “is likely to acquiesce and announce a program of asset purchases.”

National Bank Financial says that the far weaker than expected jobs report for September “should have provided enough arguments to convince a majority of FOMC voting members to support a second round of quantitative easing.” NBF says the size of any such program is uncertain, and likely depends on what will be done on the fiscal front.

“Given the current situation in the U.S. and the volatile environment that is likely to ensue in foreign exchange markets, we are altering our forecast for Canadian monetary policy,” NBF adds. “We now expect the Bank of Canada to move to the sidelines for the next few months to assess the impact of global currency adjustments on the Canadian economy.”