A former Bank of Canada governor is predicting Canada has about a 30 per cent chance of falling into a recession, amid growing global economic pressures.<\/p>\n
The ongoing war in the Middle East \u2014 with blockades in the Strait of Hormuz and damage to production facilities \u2014 is taking a striking toll on the global economy, sending fuel prices soaring and risking a global energy crisis.<\/p>\n
The International Monetary Fund, meanwhile, issued a stark warning this week that the global economy could come close to experiencing a recession if the conflict in the Middle East persists, writing in its latest world economic outlook that \u201cthe downside risks are tremendous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephen Poloz \u2014 who is now a special adviser at Osler, Hoskins and Harcourt \u2014 said growth in Canada is only at about one per cent, and the economy is still \u201cdigesting\u201d U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s tariff regime.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about somehow avoiding all that,\u201d Poloz told CTV Question Period host Vassy Kapelos in an interview airing Sunday. \u201cThen on top of that, we\u2019ve got this oil shock.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Gas prices rose to over $2 per litre in many stations in Montreal on Thursday, April 2, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Christinne Muschi Gas prices rose to over $2 per litre in many stations in Montreal on Thursday, April 2, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Christinne Muschi <\/p>\n
\u201cCan we do some offsets? Like, for example, the government changes the tax structure on gasoline. That\u2019s a mitigant, a short-term kind of offset,\u201d he added. \u201cBut really, for the Trump tariffs, what we need is to find replacements, as opposed to offsets.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed to expanding the conventional energy sector and boosting the homegrown defence industry as examples of potentially effective offsets.<\/p>\n
The IMF in its outlook lays out its base, adverse and severe economic scenarios. Poloz said while it appears the global economy is currently veering into adverse territory, it\u2019s possible it eventually returns to base if the conflict in the Middle East winds down soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanada may get a little bit luckier than others, because we\u2019re a big producer and net exporter of oil,\u201d Poloz added. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean we can just suddenly walk away and not have a recession with everybody else, but it means it\u2019s mitigated by the revenue flows from the oil.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut within Canada,\u201d he added, \u201cwe\u2019d be a case with our head in the oven and our feet in the freezer, (with) very big divergences across sectors, households versus companies, regions, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n
You can watch former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz\u2019s full interview on CTV Question Period Sunday at 11 a.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Bank of Canada governor is predicting Canada has about a 30 per cent chance of falling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":["post-614132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}