OTTAWA—Canada’s central bank says businesses and consumers are increasingly convinced that the pace of price increases will continue for the foreseeable future. The Bank of Canada said Monday that its pair of quarterly surveys of businesses and consumers show respondents expect the annual rate of inflation to remain above the Bank of Canada’s two percent target for the rest of the year. Two-thirds of the firms that took part in the bank’s business outlook survey anticipate inflation to stay above three percent over the next two years. Respondents in the survey of consumer expectations expected inflation to remain above four percent for the next two years, up from readings in the survey from the previous quarter. Longer-term expectations stayed relatively steady around 3.5 percent five years out. For consumers, inflation has become what the central bank describes as the most important economic issue, more so than taxes and jobs. “Canadians …