Canada must have found some economic progress in the pocket of an old winter coat. Last week Statistics Canada (Stat Can) made some big upward revisions to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) data. The country’s national statistics agency found the equivalent of a whole year of economic activity that was hiding between 2021 to 2023. That’s good news for the economy, which is apparently doing much better than previously thought. However, that’s bad news for the central bank who’s now finding out it made a supersized rate cut to address deflationary pressure presented by an output gap that was just eliminated.
Canadian GDP Got An Upward Revision Equal To A Year’s Worth of Activity
Canadian GDP got a big upward revision last week with the provincial data. Stat Can looked deep in its couches and found a whopping 1.3% underreported growth from 2021 to 2023. The provincial data took the headlines, but this was really the big news.
“The latest annual provincial GDP estimates were perhaps most notable for the big upward revisions to growth for the country as a whole,” stated Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO.
He further explains, “To briefly recap, the past three years have been revised up by a cumulative 1.3 percentage points: 2023 goes to 1.5% (from 1.2%), 2022 to 4.2% (vs 3.8%) and 2021 all the way up to 6.0% (5.3%).”
It’s hard to emphasize just how much growth had been underreported. Annual GDP growth was originally reported at 1.2% last year, and the total revision over a 3-year span was bigger. It’s like they discovered a whole extra year of output they missed over a short span. Whoops!
Bank of Canada Made A Supersized Cut To Address Deflationary Pressure That Didn’t Exist
Most people will likely hear the upward revision and assume it just means the economy grew faster. Yay! But it brings up a lot more immediate questions—the ones off the bat are how is this possible with such weak revenues and elevated unemployment? It also brings up a less obvious and more important issue—the output gap is much smaller than believed.
The output gap is the difference between what the economy produces and what it could produce. An economy that performs below its output gap is said to be in a phase of oversupply, meaning not enough is being consumed relative to the amount the economy can produce. A positive output gap is considered undersupplied, and an inflationary risk. It’s one of the most important factors a central bank considers when assessing the direction of interest rates.
The Bank of Canada (BoC) tries to get CPI at the target, and maintain a minimal output gap. When making its last rate cut, CPI was pretty darn close to the central bank’s target rate but the BoC made the country’s first non-recession 50 basis point (bp) rate cut. It was concerned the output gap implied the economy was oversupplied and needed a lot more stimulus to prevent deflation.
“While this may seem like ancient history, the BoC’s latest MPR pegged the output gap between -1.75% and -0.75%. The mid- point of that range is -1.25%, or almost precisely how much the level of real GDP just got revised higher,” explains Porter.
In plain English, the revision means the output gap is much smaller than they had originally believed. The current BoC output gap is estimated at -1.1% according to their website, meaning inflation is actually slanted to the upside—not in favor of deflation, as per the reasoning for panicked rate cuts.
At this point, it may not really matter what inflation and output is reported, model adjustments seem to always err on the side of perfect. First there was the way inflation was modeled, with a Big Six bank warning the new adjustments will chronically underreport inflation. Now there’s the massive revision post the largest non-recession rate cut in the BoC’s history. There’s little doubt more data revisionism is in the pipeline.
“No fear, the BoC will likely now revise their estimate of potential growth higher as well,” says Porter.
The upside to all of this is Canada’s per capita GDP will be revised. BMO says this will make the past 3 years less painful statistically, though not enough to really change concerns.
“The 2023 level is now exactly in line with 2019 (instead of falling 1.3% over that period). Still bad, but less horrendous,” he notes.
The bank sees at least one good data point, but most of the public is unlikely to be as excited as they are. Originally in 2021, they forecasted the economy would grow at a rate of 6%, an unusually large miss for the bank’s economists.
“..: The first estimate from StatCan for that year was 4.5% (in 2022). Last year, it was revised up to 5.3%, and now to 6.0%. Sigh,” explains the economist, who can now sleep easy knowing he wasn’t off, apparently Canada just needed to catch up.
Not suspicious at all.
Canada’s economy is doing just fine. Buy real estate! Everyone!
Please. We need you to but real estate so the pyramid scheme doesn’t collapse.
Not joking. Buy real estate. Please.
Are we so inefficient not able to tabulate our figures and take 2-3 years to find the errors and align them or are we run by politicians to fake numbers is the question. We are a G7 nation and I am sure the Underdeveloped economies have a better reporting system in place.
Wake up guys
It’s actually insane. The question is whether they lied now or then?
If this was a public company investors would accuse management of fraud because it looks like sandbagging data for a favorable outcome or insider deal.
Think about how weird it is that they took out years of debt for things like unspent mortgage credit and developer loans, only to realize the cheap debt wasn’t necessary.
They lied now obviously. Their little “hidden growth” is for not reducing interest rates anymore since the US elections are over and of course impending dedollarization also means hyperinflation
Isn’t that convenient, Justin Trudeaus reputation is in the garbage and bow some miraculous, misinterpreted data shows our economy is much much better than first thought. Why do we only get this good news when trudeaus political life is on the line?
The Poilievre platform relies on everything in Canada being bad, so he can swoop in and tell us everything is good when he is Prime Minister – All the while , nothing significant has changed – just a new Prime Minister with a new message !
Can anyone please translate what all of the above actually means? In terms of where the economy is, what are the interest rate projections and the housing market price level projections.
Also is the revision simply proceeds from money laundering, or is this just a pre election stung by statistics Canada?
Basically it takes 2 years for the Bank of Canada rate decisions to be reflected in the market.
– Headline CPI is 1.6% but they don’t use headline, they use Core CPI which is 2.1%. Headline CPI is going to pop right back up in a few weeks if core doesn’t come down
– since it takes so long for policy to change the picture, they look at the output gap to see where inflation will head, in addition to where CPI is moving. It suggested policy was too tight so they needed to cut.
– they made a double cut because they’re buffoons, making a decision looking at what’s going to happen in 2 years but acting like it’s an emergency where the economy could collapse in days
– the gov now says they didn’t have the embarrassing per capita GDP issue previously believed with this revision. They most likely didn’t understand that revising that data changes the picture of the current decisions, so now policy is too tight
– this is basically why bond yields are so messed up right now.
Bond yields are messed up because there is simply no demand for bonds due to impending dedollarization. US is going through it and so is Canada.
I think you need to stop repeating what you hear and watch the actual market. US bonds are rippling and yields are plunging because everyone wants US dollar exposure rn.
Canada is buying its own issuance with other issuance. Its the biggest buyer of its own debt now, other than counter party trade.
In which parallel universe are US yields plunging? The 10 year is asking for 4.43% today. It was 3.60% prior to the election mid-September.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5ETNX/
Please do not spread misinformation since it can be easily debunked with a chart.
The US dollar is simply making a hopium endorsed regime-change run which will promptly reverse after the swearing in ceremony. Just like last time.
Simply put, it means:
-Crushing grandma’s savings
-supporting greedy developers and hedge fund landlords
-bailing out debt mongers
In reality the government finding this information late after the Central Bank made their policy decisions was actually a win for your grandmother’s savings. If the BofC had this info in 2021-2023 the rates would have gone higher.
OC decision on the current rate doesn’t depend on mis information from more than a year ago, it only cares about what’s happening now and likely happening next year.
You read into the reporters bias instead of thinking about the facts that he reported, then you gave your misinformed opinion like every other common idiot in the democratic world. I’m suprized you didn’t finish with the line it’s all Trudeau’s fault.
Lol do your own homework 🤣. Unless you want to pay me 1/2 million $ salary a year then I’ll answer your questions.
This is false. BOC knows what they are doing and there is ton of research. behind their decisions. Stop spreading false news. Economy is doing very poor, lot of people don’t have work and inflation is falling below 1%. There is also much less spending since people need to service loans. Lot of businesses are closing down. BOC will likely do another 50bps cut in December. They should cut even more to 75bps or more.
Yeah you’re right we should probably keep everything exactly the way it is because the liberals aren’t a bunch of thieves
It means they’re lying again and nothing is good. It’s more lies to cover-up previous lies. In reality everything is actually collapsing 😞
When will the investigation launch?
Somehow I don’t believe anything because on the street it’s bad I work in people’s homes it’s bad I don’t believe anything. stats can good be bribed or altered by the government the way things are in this country with this liberal government anything is possible.
Nothing really new. Rigging asset prices and not running an economy. CPI not a measure of real economic inflation. Real estate rigged as an investment rather than a partial hedge on inflation like it is under capitalism (Real estate 3x what it should be). Been feudalism/soft fascism for decades, not capitalism.
Another faux pas by the government and the BOC. No reason for the BOC to lower the interest rate but it was done which will increase inflation. Inflation is increased by cheap money borrowing cost which stimulates spending. Not smart when there isn’t a recession (yet).
Inflation doesn’t just spin on a dime there dum dum.
I have a simpler answer. It is called lying. The government does it all the time.
“Oops! Now that Trump got elected, Canadian economy was fine after all, we made a mistake with that jumbo rate cut”….
Understand their signaling here, folks. This is setting the stage for rates to go up, and not down, starting sometime next year.
Trump’s tariffs on Canada will need to be offset by a lower CAD to protect exports. And a falling CAD is quite inflationary. Rates therefore need to rise to defend the falling CAD and provide the ongoing illusion that the powers-that-be are fighting inflation.
Trudumb or Pollianna, doesn’t matter, Canada is simply in deep trouble.
Higher tariffs = lower CAD = higher inflation = higher interest rates = continued real estate doldrums = capital/resource flight
Do you not want to believe it?
Honestly, how are all levels of our government so incompetent? It is honestly shocking.
They are not incompetent at all. It is all very deliberate signaling. Watch what they do and not what they say.
These are highly competent predators that are busy “managing the decline” by using every stratagem in the playbook.
Decline is inevitable.
liberals (including the idiots at BOC)) are too introspective to think or care about the accuracy of their reports. they are also too busy trying to fix the (taxpayer paid) pension plan for all those who will not be elected next time around; shifting the goal posts so that they can claim millions of more pension money is the extent of their interest which of course is guided by their gluttonus appetite for stealing as much as they can before they are kicked out.
Somebody should be fired!
Timely election news.
Or managing the economy by Good News. That is like pulling the rabbit out of the PM hat.
The GDP grew while people still find buying homes or putting food on the table much harder.
WOW!!
Looks like there are two camps here: “Government” is either incompetent, or devious, the latter usually accompanied by evil plans for WEF theft of personal wealth. That’s a bit too tin foil hat for me. I’m old enough to recognize that incompetence is the choice more supported by evidence and historical example. It’s just not the sexy choice. People prefer order over disorder: it’s more comforting to believe in Evil Overlords than Rudderless Idiots.
Let’s meet in the middle.
Governments are incompetent.
Central bankers are devious.
Western populace including their governments, will never be truly free until they learn to make a distinction between the two.
Besides, the revision disclosed within this article refers to a move made by the bank, not the government. It is deliberate. Rates will go up after sufficient new suckers have been roped in.
Stats Canada makes revisions to its’ data EVERY November. You would know this if you actually followed Canadian economic reporting instead of political-conspiracy chains.
Monthly reports are *estimates*. Understandably, compiling data from a +40 million population takes more than 30 days. My accountant takes longer than that on my tax filings.
Getting all the data reported accurately after multiple annual revisions *may* take a couple years.
Grow up children.
Thanks for the advice about growing up, but I’ll pass on that advice if it’s coming from the likes of you.
Canadian stats DO take abnormally long to get published. Your comment would make sense if StatsCan was operating within the standards of other developed countries, but it doesn’t.
And “finding” a full year’s worth of GDP growth in the revisions is not normal. Heck, I can’t imagine anyone with a brain not wondering about the validity and credibility of these revisions.
I recall an amendment like this before our last federal election too. The Lieberals manipulating data to shift growth closer to the election date so it’s fresh in our minds when it comes time to vote. Figures.
So they got this wrong for years, and suddenly the gdp is better? Was it actually better or is this more Liberal vote manipulation.
Ah! So prices going down, especially for housing is bad? And the priority is to maintain an inflationary regime, which, as always, favors the extremely rich. Sound “policy.”
Notice how everything that Justin screwed up is all of sudden okay, fantastic? He cut immigration numbers a couple of weeks ago, a direct now miraculously, the economy has never been better?? Lies, all damn lies……Justin Trudeau IS Canada’s Trump…….he’ll do ANYTHING to save his corrupt party and self…..lying is what he does BEST!
Stats Canada is independant of the political party in power. They are non-partisan.
Claiming the data was manipulated is no different than claiming Trump won 2020.
StatsCan is legislated as a non-partisan organization. That’s about all you can say about that. Nothing in the operation of StatsCan suggests impartiality or competence – especially since the organization was moved under the umbrella of Shared Services Canada about 10 years ago. Since then, the data has looked fishy very often, and the time to publish data has gone through the roof. Not to mention that less and less data is available to the public since then.
I would love to be pointed to the source of this article’s claims. This is the only article I have read stating these facts and it seems like pretty huge news if it’s true. Is it buried somewhere in a stats can report because I can’t find it if it is. I don’t believe this.
The article claims are literally cited in the interview with BMO Capital Markets. Considering the same economist appears in their videos (like the former head of the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve), they’re pretty credible on this front.
Feel free to look at the Statistics Canada revision log (I recall seeing it) or reach out to BMO to confirm the data though.