All 12 primary securities dealers surveyed by Reuters speculate the Bank of Canada to maintain its overnight target rate on Tuesday at 0.25 percent.

"There's a big upside risk on interest rates", compared with what investors and the public expect, William Robson, President of the nonpartisan research body, said in a telephone interview. A surprise jump in rates could cause "a blow to public confidence" and boost the Canadian dollar, he said.

Everyone think seek the bank to hike rates later this year, with forecasts for the year-end rate ranging from 0.75 percent to 1.75 percent.

9 of the 12 forecast the bank will follow through on its conditional pledge to hold rates at their current level until the end of June, with one seeing the first hike in April and two expecting a hike in June.

Output on overnight index swaps, which trade based on speculations for the key central bank rate, depicted that investors hopes the bank's overnight rate to hike to nearly 0.50 percent by September whereas a week ago they expected rates to reach that level by July.

"We might end up having more inflation by accident because the Bank of Canada feels it can't act fast enough because it may jar people", Robson said.