It seems like the recession is over.
When Canada fell into what is called a technical recession a month ago, there were many in the economics universe who questioned the official title of technical recession on this one. That was largely because it didn’t feel like a recession and, yes, we had met the definition of two consecutive quarters of negative growth but, well, it didn’t feel like a recession.
That was when the numbers came out for the end of March. This week we got April’s results and they were quite strong …up a half point which exceeded earlier projections. And then we go the preliminary figures for May and they too were positive. Now, this latest estimate is subject to significant change in the next few weeks but those who said recession talk was premature can feel somewhat vindicated.
The upshot of all this is the pressure now is more about inflation and the prospect of having to raise interest rates rather than talk of recession with the need to lower the cost of borrowing.
