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5 Things to Know Today: Canada Enters Recession, Oil Slips on Iran Ceasefire Talk

Saturday, May 30, 2026 — Your quick-hit Canadian financial briefing for the day. 1.Canada Officially Meets the Definition of a Technical Recession Statistics Canada confirmed Friday that real GDP contracted 0.1% on an annualized basis in Q1 2026 — following a revised 1.0% drop in Q4 2025 . That's two straight quarters of negative growth, which meets the technical definition of a recession. The miss was a big one: economists had forecast growth of 1.5% . The main culprits were a surge in imports (up 2.9%, largely gold), declining business capital investment (down 0.7% — its fifth consecutive quarterly drop ), and weakness in resource extraction and construction. On a per-capita basis, GDP actually edged up 0.2% as Canada's population shrank for the second quarter in a row. Not everyone is ready to call it a full recession: some economists note that three of the four weak months were isolated, and early April data points to a sharp 0.4% rebound . Still, the numbers ...

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Canada’s economy continues to sputter in Q4 2023

According to Statistics Canada, Canada’s economy showed no growth in October, remaining unchanged at 0.0% on a monthly basis, which is below analyst expectations of 0.2% growth . This marks the third straight month where economic growth was essentially unchanged. Advance estimates for November showed that GDP increased 0.1% last month, as increases in manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting were partially offset by decreases in retail trade .

The country’s economic engine continued to sputter in the fourth quarter, according to Royce Mendes, Desjardins’ managing director and head of macro strategy. He expects the economy to post “virtually no growth” in the fourth quarter and continue to stagnate. As more households and businesses feel the impacts of higher interest rates in 2024, we expect Canada to fall into at least a mild recession. So while the economy is sputtering now, it might begin rolling backwards early in the new year.


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