Another whirlwind week for Canada included tariffs on steel and aluminum shipments to the United States -- and another near-C$30 billion in counter-tariffs on U.S. imports into Canada-- a 25bps rate cut by the Bank of Canada, and a new Prime Minister in Mark Carney on Friday, noted Bank of Montreal (BMO).

Caney -- former top central banker of two G7 nations, and now leader of one of them -- will campaign on his resume to Canadians once a parliamentary election is called in the coming days, said the bank.

While tariffs weighed on equities through most of last week -- before clawing back some of those losses on Friday -- the TSX once again outperformed other North American indices and was down just 0.8%. The Canadian dollar (CAD or loonie), which also had another bumpy week, is trading around $1.435 (69.7 cents US) early Monday, stated BMO.

Monday will be a housing-filled day, starting with an expected increase in February housing starts at 8:15 a.m. ET, pointed out the bank. At 9 a.m., investors will see how the resale market fared in a snowy February. BMO is expecting home sales to fall 11% year over year and average prices to dip 1% year over year.

The quality-adjusted MLS HPI is expected to be flat over the same period. The months ahead are going to be even less clear, with higher-than-normal uncertainty owing to tariffs. While further rate cuts will support demand, tariffs pose a meaningful threat to economic growth and could impede the housing market's recovery.

Given that this recovery is fragmented by region, and the impact of tariffs will also vary by region -- hitting Ontario and Central Canada the hardest -- the trade war is likely to widen the regional differences in the housing market, added the bank.

Investors will also get January construction investment and international securities transactions at 8:30 a.m. ET on Monday.

Looking ahead, CPI is out on Tuesday and is expected to show an acceleration in inflation as the GST/HST holiday ended partway through February. BMO expects headline inflation to jump to 2.2% year over year from 1.9% in January, with the Trim and Median remaining in the high-2% range. Investors will also get producer prices for February on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Canada's population estimates will be out for Q4 and will likely reflect a continued deceleration on the new federal immigration limits.

Investors will also hear from BoC Governor Tiff Macklem on Thursday when he speaks in Calgary. The post-event press conference will no doubt be filled with questions on U.S. tariffs. The same day, China's tariffs on some Canadian products, including canola pork, will come into effect.

Friday, retail sales look to pull back in January after December's solid increase. BMO is estimating a 0.4% month-over-month contraction, in line with Statistics Canada's flash estimate, though sales excluding autos could come in little changed from the previous month.

Finally, there are three provincial budgets over three days this week: New Brunswick on Tuesday, Saskatchewan on Wednesday and Manitoba on Thursday. Much like the three the markets have already seen, the provinces will likely have different ways of accounting for the tariff uncertainty in their forecasts.

That makes it much harder to create medium-term, or even short-term, forecasts, but also makes it harder to compare relative fiscal profiles given the different assumptions across provinces. In any case, the bank is expecting additional fiscal pressures reflected in all three of this week's budgets.