{"id":716223,"date":"2026-06-05T06:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/716223\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T06:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:49:11","slug":"a-technical-recession-but-with-rising-living-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/716223\/","title":{"rendered":"A technical recession, but with rising living standards?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The federal opposition hammered Prime Minister Mark Carney this week over the so-called ‘Liberal recession.’Arlyn McAdorey\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

As politicians trade barbs about whether Canada\u2019s economy is in recession, a key indicator that many economists obsessed about just a few years ago is trending in the right direction \u2013 albeit with a big asterisk that matters a lot to Canada\u2019s competitiveness.<\/p>\n

Since Statistics Canada reported last week that gross domestic product shrank in the first quarter for the second consecutive period \u2013 what is sometimes referred to as a \u201ctechnical recession\u201d \u2013 the R-word has been flying around Ottawa. <\/p>\n

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre hammered Prime Minister Mark Carney this week over the \u201cLiberal recession,\u201d even as economists on Bay Street said it was premature<\/a> to label this downturn a full-fledged recession.<\/p>\n

But real GDP per capita \u2013 or economic output per person \u2013 actually expanded by 0.2 per cent in the first quarter, a gain that got considerably less attention than it did between 2021 and 2024, when the indicator was flagging.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Back then the country\u2019s exploding population was juicing Canada\u2019s growth, leading some economists to highlight stagnant or declining real per capita GDP as a better reflection of Canada\u2019s low-productivity economy. As a proxy for living standards, weak GDP per capita indicated Canadians were falling behind. <\/p>\n

Now there are tentative signs the reverse is happening. With Canada\u2019s population shrinking, that\u2019s creating a drag on economic activity, a point Mr. Carney has emphasized. <\/p>\n

In that way, per capita GDP may present a clearer picture of growth, though the revelation this week that Canada\u2019s business sector labour productivity declined for the second consecutive quarter showed the outlook remains murky.<\/p>\n

As National Bank economists noted in a report highlighting the population effect: \u201cThe Canadian economy remains fragile \u2026 but we are not ready to bandy about the \u2018R\u2019 word, at least not yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Decoder is a weekly feature that unpacks an important economic chart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: The federal opposition hammered Prime Minister Mark Carney this week over the so-called…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,14537],"class_list":["post-716223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chartoftheday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716223","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=716223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}