Its not about who looks best but who looks the least bad. That’s the headline slapped on the latest in economic forecasts for the provinces issued by the team at CIBC Capital Markets.
They say the whole country is slowing down and, while none of the provinces will find itself in a recession this year, things are generally softening.
But that is especially true for the highly populated provinces where consumer spending is going to be suppressed by interest rates on expensive residential real estate.
At the other end of the scale, the commodity producers, like Saskatchewan, are poised to come out of the trough as commodity prices begin to strengthen later this year.
And so it has ranked the three oil producers – Alberta, Newfoundland and Saskatchewan – as Canada’s top performers this year.
Saskatchewan, they say, will see growth of 1.3 per cent this year, putting us in third place with growth three-times what is expected in Ontario, Quebec and BC.
But next year will see a robust rebound with expansion to hit two percent, just behind Alberta for second place and still ahead of the big provinces.
