It’s interesting to watch how the economics units at the various chartered banks in this country assess the outlook for local or provincial economies and how widely they can vary.
A couple worth watching are Royal Bank and Bank of Montreal if you’re looking for contrasts. RBC tends to be bullish on Saskatchewan while BMO is more bearish.
In its latest forecast RBC suggests Saskatchewan will place second among the provinces in terms of GDP expansion with growth of roughly two percent both this year and next.
BMO Bank of Montreal is seeing a similar story for this year – growth of roughly two percent putting us in second place behind Alberta and ahead of the national average – but next year is a completely different story as they have us near the bottom of the pack at 1.6-percent, the lowest west of Atlantic Canada and significantly off the RBC outlook.
BMO also expects our 2026 employment growth to be its lowest in a few years and housing starts are going to continue to fall through this year and next.
