Senior policymakers at the Bank of Canada said on Wednesday that they are still ready to raise the benchmark interest rate further, even as interest rates reached their highest level in 22 years earlier this month.

The central bank issued comments today regarding the deliberations related to its interest rate decision on July 12, which saw the policy rate rise by 25 basis points to 5.0 percent.

The Bank of Canada's hike in July followed another quarter-point increase in interest rates in June. Many economists at the time expected that the rate hike was not enough to assuage the central bank's concerns that the decline in inflation might halt. This was followed by a debate among observers and economists after the July 12 decision about whether the recent increase in interest rates was truly necessary as inflation fell into the central bank's target range of one to three percent.

The consensus of the central bank's board in July was that keeping the key policy rate unchanged at 4.75 percent would risk hindering the progress made in curbing price increases, which has so far seen annual inflation decrease to 2.8 percent from its peak of 8.1 percent last year.

The board determined that inflation could rise again if the Bank of Canada did not continue to apply pressure on the economy through higher interest rates.