Canada entered a technical recession after headline GDP shrank modestly in Q1,
driven by weak business and government spending, Statistics Canada said on
Friday. Real GDP fell an annualized 0.1% in Q1; Q4 was revised to a 1.0%
annualized contraction from a prior -0.6% estimate. The Q1 decline surprised
forecasters: a Bloomberg survey had penciled in a 1.5% annualized gain, broadly
matching Bank of Canada projections. Canada last posted consecutive quarterly
declines in 2020 during the pandemic; the previous occurrence was in 2015 amid
low oil prices.
