{"id":721402,"date":"2026-06-07T17:11:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T17:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/721402\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T17:11:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T17:11:40","slug":"canadas-economy-used-to-look-better-than-it-really-was-now-its-the-opposite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/721402\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s economy used to look better than it really was. Now, it\u2019s the opposite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A new Canadian holds a flag at a citizenship ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in April, 2019.Sean Kilpatrick\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The 2023 federal budget proudly proclaimed that \u201cCanada\u2019s economy is now 103 per cent<\/a> the size it was before the pandemic,\u201d giving us the G7\u2019s top economic growth rate. <\/p>\n

The statement was true. It was also false.<\/p>\n

That 2023 budget touted how \u201cCanada continues to post the fastest population growth in the G7,\u201d tying our chart-topping immigration levels to our allegedly world-beating economic growth.<\/p>\n

This claim was also sort of true yet, on deeper examination, profoundly untrue. <\/p>\n

How Canada got immigration right for so long \u2013 and then got it very, very wrong<\/a><\/p>\n

Even accurate statistics can paint an inaccurate picture \u2013 if you choose the wrong statistics. <\/p>\n

The gross domestic product figures were accurate, as were the population statistics. What the Trudeau government failed to do was consider them together. It failed to divide.<\/p>\n

From mid-2022 until late 2023, Canada\u2019s GDP rose, in part because very high immigration meant more consumers and workers. No lie. But \u2013 big wrinkle \u2013 population grew faster than the economy.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The pie got bigger. The slices got smaller.<\/p>\n

Over five quarters starting in mid-2022, GDP rose 1.4 per cent. But per-person GDP declined 2.4 per cent. <\/p>\n

At the time, Canada was in the midst of an unprecedented immigration wave, with a record 3.1 million<\/a> net new people arriving between 2022 and 2024. <\/p>\n

The economy grew, but the population grew faster. The result was a hidden, per capita recession. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The reverse has been happening over the past year, as detailed in a recent report<\/a> from the economics team at National Bank of Canada.<\/p>\n

In the first quarter of 2026, GDP contracted by 0.1 per cent on an annualized basis. That followed a contraction in the fourth quarter of 2025, hence the talk of a \u201ctechnical recession.\u201d But annualized GDP per capita in the first quarter rose 0.9 per cent. <\/p>\n

Ottawa has been reining in immigration since 2025, and Statistics Canada says the national population fell last year. Recent GDP figures look better once that is taken in account \u2013 and the economy from 2022 to 2024 was clearly in worse shape than it appeared. <\/p>\n

The conclusion to draw is not that immigration makes Canada poorer, or that a shrinking population is the route to prosperity. As for the Trudeau government\u2019s belief that rapid population growth would automatically make us all richer, that\u2019s not true either.<\/p>\n

What happened prior to 2025 is that immigration outpaced business investment. The number of workers grew faster than the number of tools. That delivered more production, but declining productivity. Our immigration system also became focused on recruiting low-wage workers \u2013 another route for suppressing GDP per capita.<\/p>\n

The Canadian economic pie is now 7.3 per cent larger than it was at the start of 2022. But per capita GDP, the average slice of pie, still has not recovered to where it was four years ago. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A new Canadian holds a flag at a citizenship ceremony on Parliament Hill…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3793,3782,64,63,3794,1348,3774,3795,99,2065,3773,3787,3788,3784,3775,3772,164,2555,75,69,3781,3805,3776,3777,3786,3783,1625,2289,3796,3779,3800,3801,3803,3798,3802,3797,3799,3778,3790,3791,84,3789,2111,635,105,3792,3785,3780,1346,3804],"class_list":["post-721402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}