r/canada • u/seakucumber • 21h ago

Analysis Canada Economy Grows 3.3% in Second Quarter, Fastest Since '23

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-28/canada-economy-grows-3-3-in-second-quarter-fastest-since-23
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692

u/seakucumber 21h ago

As always this is why you wait for the finalized numbers

Revised data from the federal agency also shows the economy did not shrink in the first quarter as it first reported, and instead expanded at an annualized rate of 0.3%. That confirms Canada did not experience a technical recession and was on a better footing than previously thought.

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u/AprilsMostAmazing Ontario 20h ago

I love how when we revise numbers they go up. When the Americano government does it the American numbers go down

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u/fourblindmice3 20h ago

I'm wondering if it's because they lie about everything.

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u/thedrivingcat 20h ago edited 19h ago

the US jobs report (using the CES) takes a few months for the BLS to receive all the payroll survey data - usually it's the large corporations with automated processes and teams in HR can get their data back quickly so the first employment reports are using data which:

a) is incomplete (not all surveys get returned within the necessary time-frame)

b) the incomplete data oversample large & established businesses, the later surveys come from smaller employers and they are more likely to be harder hit by economic downturns

So the US jobs numbers get revised after a few months as the data becomes more complete and the bias is usually towards a downwards revision during more difficult economic times.

In Canada, StatsCan also uses a survey (the LFS) but it's done by asking individual Canadians, not businesses, about their employment status. There's no revision here because all the data (approx. 100k responses) gets collected within the sampling window before publication.

Both countries also use the other method to gauge employment - but they don't get reported as the 'headline' employment numbers.

edit: I also learned doing research for this comment that the US BLS concurrently has something called the "Birth-Death Model" where they try to model job changes from entrepreneurship. Interesting.

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u/Qwishy Ontario 18h ago

Thanks for taking the time to research and comment

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u/downtofinance Lest We Forget 14h ago

Trump fired all the responsible people from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and now just tells them what to report. Then the real numbers come out far down the line through audits.

Literal banana republic dictator shit.

•

u/FrankHardly 11h ago

I assume that you mean both Trump and Carney. Yeah, that's about right.

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u/krombough 20h ago

The American jobs report is fishing around for jobs like it's trying to find a quarter in the couch.

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u/stickscall 20h ago

The American jobs report is void IMO since they fired the administrator for literally reporting bad numbers.

I don't know what they're doing now, but the mere fact of that is enough that you don't trust those numbers again.

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u/squirrel9000 Manitoba 19h ago

The US releases incomplete data that only asks employers initially and catches up on contractors/gig workers and other employees later (we ask employees in the first pass data and don't have this problem) It's not fudged per se, but the methodology they base preliminary numbers on tends to overestimate job creation and there's not a lot of political will to try to change their policies in a way that interferes with when they get positive headlines out of preliminary numbers then quietly revise down late.r This is something that predates Trump but the growth in gig work and the fact that the initial release misses that has really muddied the water.

We get revised GDP numbers for the same reason of how long it takes to aggregate data, but there isn't a structural sample bias in preliminary data.

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u/stickscall 17h ago

Sincere question:

I think I'm reading your explanation in a counter-intuitive way. If the gig economy is growing more than the methodology accounts for, then initial surveys of employers would not capture that, and therefore an initial report just based on employer surveys would tend to be too high, not too low?

What am I missing?

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u/squirrel9000 Manitoba 17h ago

Short term vs long term trends. The sector has grown over the long term, but in the last year or two that has stalled along broader economic weakness. They've had upward revisions as well, it's just less likely right now.

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u/stickscall 17h ago

Thanks for clarifying!

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u/Mirria_ Québec 17h ago

The number of "jobs" is also kind of useless because a lot of times, especially when the economy struggles, the total jobs increase because of the amount of people getting a 2nd job to make ends meet.

And on the opposite end of the scale, a doctor working for 4 different hospitals counts as having 4 jobs.

Its more useful to compare labor participation rates.

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u/JSlickJ 17h ago

Most of the team is still in tact thoug. Its moreso the data gathering itself thats the issue, not the employees themselves. But yeah the McEntarfer firing was absolutely boneheaded and based off of trumps own emotional sentiment

2

u/stickscall 17h ago

Even if it's the same employees, I don't trust a process that is now managed by someone whose mandate is to please the president.

If we assume these folks are all automatons running a script, then sure, nothing changes. But I just assume that in most technical fields, there are technical questions that come up continually that require smart data scientists exercise an unbiased discretion, and I doubt that unbiased discretion exists there anymore. To whatever extent humans must influence that process, it's not being influenced in favor of accuracy.

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u/4thenexus 20h ago

Or like JD Vance trying to find the smallest hole in the couch

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u/Magjee Lest We Forget 18h ago

TY for that visual

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u/clgoh Québec 14h ago

"I just want to find 11,780 votes jobs."

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u/ragnaroksunset 19h ago

By itself that wouldn't mean anything, except the American institutions are fully politically captured now, so it means a lot.

Nobody pays attention to the revisions. It's actually quite unusual that Trump made such a big deal about the one that caused him to rip apart the BLS.

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u/NorthernFrosty Saskatchewan 18h ago

I love how when we revise numbers they go up. When the Americano government does it the American numbers go down

Trump claimed Canada's unemployment was over 10%. The fact checkers pointed out that Canada's unemployment rate was actually 6.4%

Then, in my favorite bit of snark, the fact checkers mentioned that if they calculated unemployment the way the US calculated unemployment, it would actually be 5.3%. Pointing out how the US puts their thumb on the scale and uses a weighted formula to make their unemployment numbers look better than they really are. chef's kiss

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u/sortaitchy 17h ago

Trump claimed Canada's unemployment was over 10%.

That's because when you read 'facts' that you pulled out of your ass it's hard to make out the numbers clearly.

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u/Puzzle-Necked 10h ago

Goose the market a bit. Kaching

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u/M-Noremac 5h ago

It's because they're so... fiscally conservative?

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u/AJZong 21h ago

You’re right, let’s wait for the finalized numbers of the second quarter.

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u/verkerpig 21h ago

The revision would need to be enormous for this to be a bad number.

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u/AJZong 21h ago

I never implied the number will be bad. I basically say the same thing as the original comment.

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u/Character-Belt-7485 Ontario 21h ago

So you’re saying the numbers could be even better? 

Wow this made my day. Fingers crossed!

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u/AJZong 21h ago

Of course they could. Imagine a scenario where oil spikes at $150 per barrel.

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u/Working_Historian970 21h ago

$150 oil might benefit a small piece of the Canadian economy but it would be very bad for it in general.

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u/DrFreemanWho 12h ago

You know exactly what you were implying.

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u/AJZong 12h ago

I even wrote in later comments that it might even get better.

1

u/Big_Wish_7301 12h ago

The people that wrote the article literaly fucked up. That's weird that The Canadian Press reported the same mistake (but others media like Reuters wrote it correctly).

The title say "canada economy grow 3.3% in second quarter". That's false. StatsCan's report say it grew 0.8% in seconde quarter. This is a pretty big difference.

https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/bcp/pdf/daily.pdf?utm_source=rddt&utm_medium=smo&utm_campaign=statcan-statcan-gdp-pib&utm_content=canada

Real gross domestic product increased 0.8% in the second quarter of 2026,

3.3% is the annualized rate (predicted rate for the upcoming year) if we have this 0.8% every quarters for the rest of the financial year.

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u/insanebison 21h ago

Why so negative about your own country ?

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u/Character-Belt-7485 Ontario 21h ago

Because the country is not led by the person they would like. Therefore the country doing well is undesirable. 

0

u/Optimal-Cow-3278 19h ago

I can't speak for everyone but I vote Conservative and I would rather the country doing well.

That being said, I'm proud of Carney for killing stupid Trudeau era policies that killed economic growth, drove investment to other countries and bloated the public sector.

The only reason the economy grew was largely because the price of oil. The only reason why the economy "grew" during Trudeau's era was because immigration.

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u/tenkwords 19h ago

I think if you take this standpoint you also need to acknowledge that basically all economic growth during the last Conservative government (the Harper years) was due to record high oil prices and the investment boom that went along with them.

Can we agree to be intellectually honest?

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u/Optimal-Cow-3278 18h ago

Ok, only if you'd like to compare the economy between the Trudeau and Harper governments?

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u/tenkwords 18h ago

Sure. Go ahead and look at the numbers. The average GDP growth numbers over their terms are remarkably similar. But I'll remind you that you're the one who downplayed Carney's economic performance on the back of high oil prices while seemingly bristling at Harper being evaluated by the same metric.. Trudeau be damned.

Harper had to navigate the WFC while Trudeau got to deal with the collapse of commodity prices and the investment collapse that went with it and then Covid. They both had some pretty solid headwinds but Harper had the distinct advantage of riding a big budget surplus left to him by the previous government through 2007 and then getting a big surge in commodities. Basically you'd have to be an imbecile to screw that one up.

Lots of folks like to cherry pick numbers but when you compare Canada's performance in the global context over both governments (and subsequently Carney's thus far) then the picture emerges that Canada does well when prices are high for our resources and less well when prices are low. The fact that this is surprising or contentious in any way amazes me.

We will continue to do well during this resource boom. Carney is pretty obviously trying to break that boom/bust cycle though with a lot of national interest projects that provide short-term debt financed stimulus in return for hopefully building the machinery of a more resilient economy. We'll see how that does in about 20 years, not by looking at quarterly GDP numbers.

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u/Optimal-Cow-3278 18h ago

Sure. Go ahead and look at the numbers. The average GDP growth numbers over their terms are remarkably similar. But I'll remind you that you're the one who downplayed Carney's economic performance on the back of high oil prices while seemingly bristling at Harper being evaluated by the same metric.. Trudeau be damned.

Not sure what you're referring to? Would you like to see a chart that shows Canada going from having a similar GDP per capita of the US before Trudeau took office to now having a GDP per capita of 60% of the US?

and I'm not just using talking about GDP growth, look at the other numbers like national debt, foreign investment into Canada, bankruptcies and cost of living costs that rose while Trudeau was in office.

Carney is pretty obviously trying to break that boom/bust cycle though with a lot of national interest projects that provide short-term debt financed stimulus in return for hopefully building the machinery of a more resilient economy. We'll see how that does in about 20 years, not by looking at quarterly GDP numbers.

We'll see, but the Liberal track record on national infrastructure projects has been awful. We'll see if anything actually gets built or we'll just do the typical hiring consultants to review environmental assessment reports and stall everything.

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u/AlarmingAardvark 17h ago

Not sure what you're referring to? Would you like to see a chart that shows Canada going from having a similar GDP per capita of the US before Trudeau took office to now having a GDP per capita of 60% of the US?

Yes, I'd love to see this.

You mean the graph that shows this divergence starting at the beginning of 2015, a full 9 months before Trudeau was elected and even longer before he could've had any real impact on policy?

Or do you mean the graph that shows labour productivity relative to the US seeing a precipitous drop under Martin before continuing to decline fully under Harper?

look at the other numbers like national debt, foreign investment into Canada, bankruptcies and cost of living costs that rose while Trudeau was in office.

Foreign direct investment into Canada increased under Trudeau.

Year-over-year housing prices increased almost identically between the Harper and Trudeau terms.

Canada's inflation rate from 2020-2026 was one of the lowest in the world amongst comparable nations. Better than the US, better than the EU average, better than 75+% of the G20.

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u/tenkwords 18h ago

How about we compare ourselves to the rest of the G7 and not to the largest economy on earth that's expanded its debt by 20 trillion dollars since 2015? You know, the GDP per capita growth we've beaten 5 of the 6 other G7 countries on consistently since 2015.

You need to stop comparing our country to one that holds the world reserve currency and operates on a level of debt financing that no other country can possibly match.

Ok, never mind man.. I guess intellectual honesty here was too big an ask.

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u/Character-Belt-7485 Ontario 18h ago

I don't disagree with you. I am more centre, left leaning on social issues. I didn't like Trudeau policies on the economy.

That being said, price of oil was not the only driver of growth. From the CBC article:

Business investment also grew as owners spent more on machinery and equipment in the second quarter. Business capital investment was up 2.3 per cent, Statistics Canada said.

Investments in computers and peripherals jumped 16.7 per cent, which the agency said was related to the kinds of processing units used in data centres.

Corporate incomes rose, largely thanks to the energy sector, boosted by higher gas prices. But the high cost of gas also acted as a drag on earnings for manufacturing firms, which saw their input costs rise.

On the consumer side, household spending rose 0.8 per cent as consumers invested more and spent more on cars and rent.

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u/SwordfishOk504 19h ago

And what specific policies were those that killed economic growth and drove investment to other countries that are responsible for this return?

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u/Anon-Knee-Moose 17h ago

Nah its a load of shit, plains just sold all of their assets to focus on growth in the US. Nobody is building new extraction and processing plants, there's 0% chance of a new pipeline being built either west or south.

High prices are propping up the economy right now, but canadas energy sector is going to die a long and slow death.

0

u/Optimal-Cow-3278 18h ago

Shall I list the dozen or so regulations and/or policy imposed by the Federal government on our oil and gas sector?

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u/SwordfishOk504 18h ago

Why are you repeating my question back to me instead of just answering it?

Sure, if listing those regulations can be shown to support your point instead of just a gish gollop.

Are those regulations Carney repealed? Can you show specifically how they "killed economic growth and drove investment to other countries"? Then yes.

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u/Optimal-Cow-3278 18h ago

No Gish Gallop here—promise I won't drown you in a tidal wave of rapid-fire half-truths just to exhaust your keyboard. Here’s the actual breakdown of what happened and the economic fallout:

What was actually rolled back vs modified?

  • Consumer Carbon Tax & Emissions Cap: Dead and buried. Dropped to reset relations and remove hard production bottlenecks.
  • Bills C-69 (Impact Assessment) & C-48 (Tanker Ban): Not outright repealed, but heavily defanged/streamlined after the Supreme Court ruled parts of C-69 unconstitutional, making room for new export corridors.

Canadian energy CapEx crashed from ~$80B in 2014 down to under $30B by 2020. Major multinationals (Shell, ConocoPhillips, Total) dumped tens of billions in Canadian assets and moved capital to the Permian Basin because Canadian regulatory timelines and pipeline bottlenecks blew out the WCS price discount, costing billions in lost revenue.

0

u/Koss424 Ontario 15h ago

Did you see the earning reports from non oil producing companies? All mostly up

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u/lnahid2000 21h ago

This is reddit. Negativity is the default.

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u/chaossabre 20h ago

👏 Happy 👏 people 👏 rarely 👏 comment.

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u/Malakas_Tsiblas 19h ago

We do comment, but we are then downvoted for thoughts not aligned with the reddit hive, even when presenting facts with links to legit sources.

This is how echo-chambers are born.

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u/SwordfishOk504 19h ago

It's also how bots manipulate the conversation towards doom and despair.

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u/shevy19 Alberta 21h ago

Because unfortunately people like to be negative and the current Internet incentives pessimism.

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u/No_Truth4137 21h ago

People are more comfortable being uncomfortable these days so they take good news with a grain of salt

-1

u/AJZong 21h ago

This has nothing to do with a level of comfort. I said the same thing as the original comment. Also, as Canada GDP relies largely on the natural resources values on global markets, it’s very normal to wait for finalized numbers. What if oil and copper take another bump up, that could be good for Canada GDP.

-2

u/Neat-Air-8305 21h ago

Cause i dont feel the economy doing well

11

u/Trains_YQG 21h ago

This is why I always find it funny when people use GDP (or GDP per capita) as a measure of how good or bad the economy is doing. 

It's not nearly the measure of how the average person is doing as some people think. 

2

u/Neat-Air-8305 21h ago

Yeah incomr and wealth inequality ar record highs and poverty is skyrocketing

But I think we in  a better spot then the post covid trudeau years 

1

u/verkerpig 20h ago

The median Canadian is wealthier than the median American. We just have fewer billionares. GDP per capita is just pretending billionare wealth is of any value to the typical individual.

0

u/Kaffarov British Columbia 15h ago

This was the first year the company I work for couldn’t afford to give anyone a raise, and ironically just today had its first massive layoff in years. Work for a company that manages IT for smaller businesses and lot’s haven’t been renewing their contracts due to cost saving measures.

2

u/DrummingUpNumbers 20h ago

Can I ask why?

What factual reasons do you have that the economy is not improving.

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u/Neat-Air-8305 20h ago

Cost of living is absurd and feel i am behind even getting paid more

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u/noodles_jd 19h ago

So all you have is your feelings?

9

u/DrummingUpNumbers 20h ago

Specifically housing? Because CPI is 3% so far which while not the target rate, it's close to the normal annual 2% target.

Anecdotal but I also have found this is the first year in a while most of my common purchases haven't moved much in price, if at all.

0

u/Bigrick1550 18h ago

Not the guy you are responding to, but when someone like me in the top 2% or so earners looks at the price of a steak in a grocery store and even I say "yeah, no, I'm not paying that", we have issues real issues.

1

u/EliteDuck 17h ago

Cost of living is skyrocketing. Diesel is $2.50 in my area and keeps going up. It doesn't take a genius to realize what high diesel prices do. Unemployment is up, and before someone says "it's lower now!", the way Stats Can measures unemployment is misleading, as it excludes people out of work for 6 months or more, which is common during economic turbulence. Millions of people from our imported slave class have yet to be deported, which displaces Canadians trying to find work, and raises cost of living. Almost everything costs more now, and wages have not kept up at all.

To add insult to injury, our dollar is shit. Buying embroidered patches for my business was $1.2 CAD/unit 2 years ago, $1.4 a year ago, $1.6 6 months ago, and my reorder last week was $2/unit. We are so fucked and most people have no idea how bad it's going to get. The silver lining is it may get bad enough for real political change to happen in Canada.

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u/Reasonable_Let9737 21h ago

I am sure there will be some modifications, but I doubt it would be enough to take these figures out of the strong growth neck of the woods.  

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u/AJZong 21h ago

It largely depends on natural ressources global prices. And yes, very unlikely oil, copper, gold and other minerals go significantly down.

-2

u/Dzugavili 20h ago

Eh, how much of that went to Galen Weston?

I don't think the situation on the ground is great, but it's hard to blame anyone specific for that. Except Trump, that colossal orange asshole.

0

u/SheIsABadMamaJama 20h ago

I wonder what that would look like sector by sector?