Macklem made his remarks in an interview with Reuters after earlier announcing a rate hike and saying the central bank would pause to see how the economy was reacting to tightening.
"As things start to get more back to normal, at some point, yes, we probably will be thinking about some modest cuts in interest rates," Macklem said.
"But inflation is still over 6%. We're not talking about cuts. We're not even thinking about cuts ... the question really we're asking ourselves is, 'Have we done enough?' We're pausing to assess whether we've done enough," Macklem said.
(Reporting by Steve Scherer and David Ljunggren)
