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OTTAWA — The head of Canada’s central bank acknowledged that policymakers came close to the tipping point on Wednesday’s interest rate decision.

In the end, they chose not to lower the key lending level because the “balance of risks” was still tilted toward uncertainty in the economy.

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But how close was the decision? Pretty darn close, it would seem.

Thursday, the Canadian dollar weakened to a nearly 1-week low against its U.S. counterpart as investors weighed the Bank of Canada’s more dovish tone.

By 10 a.m., the Canadian dollar was trading at 75.70 U.S. cents, down 0.48 of a cent.

“Given the downgrade to our outlook, (the) governing council actively discussed the possibility of adding more monetary stimulus at this time, in order to speed up the return of the economy to full capacity,” Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz told reporters. “However, we identified a number of significant uncertainties in the current context that are serving to widen the zone of balance within our risk-management framework.”