Forecasts
September 18, 2025
Canadian Quarterly Economic Forecast
Despite all the twists and turns in U.S. trade policy, our forecast for the global economy is broadly unchanged from our June view. Ditto for the U.S. economy, at least on the surface. Consumers have pulled back as the labor market has cooled, but that has been offset by strong business investment. The Fed is expected to cut interest rates further to support the labor market that has cooled further than previously believed. Canada’s exports have been hit hard by U.S. tariffs, but consumer spending has shown surprising resilience buoyed in part by a pull-forward in auto purchases and in the face of tariffs. Interest rate cuts have contributed to an uptick in housing activity broadly but are no panacea for the structural headwinds that will continue to weigh on Canada’s economy.
September 02, 2025
Tails We Win, Heads You Lose
The U.S. has been disruptor of itself. Whether it be to its own business cost structures and trade flows with tariff policies, or labor force dynamics with uncertainty and immigration policies. And yet, it’s paying a lower economic cost relative to peer countries. That gave rise to the title: Tails we win, heads you lose. I’ll explore the resilient features of the domestic economy, making sure to distinguish the narratives we hear from the data we see.
August 20, 2025
Questions? We've Got Answers: Addressing Issues Impacting the Economic and Financial Outlook
The global economy continues to slow in 2025, catalyzed by thickening trade barriers. This quarter's Q&A discusses the impacts of the evolving U.S. tariff regime along with several other policy shifts.
June 25, 2025
Provincial Housing Market Outlook: Firmer Back Half of 2025 in the Cards for Canadian Housing
We’ve modestly upgraded our home sales growth forecasts for the second half of the year across Canada. This represents the assumption that pent-up demand that was sidelined in a weaker-than-expected first half returns to the market.
June 18, 2025
Provincial Economic Forecast
Provincial economies across the country benefitted from a sharp rise in exports in Q1 due to tariff-front running, but the near-term trade picture is indeed rocky. Ontario and Quebec will see disproportionate impacts from U.S. tariffs on the steel, aluminum, and automotive sectors. We’re also expecting that additional U.S. levies on copper, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber will be applied. Our assumption of a gradual easing in U.S. tariff rates by year end means that the stage is set for a modest recovery in Canada’s industrial heartland in 2026.
June 17, 2025
Long-Term Forecast
Canadian economic growth is expected to run below trend in 2025 and 2026, before finding greater balance in 2027. Slowing population growth and the impact of tariffs on business and consumer sentiment are the drivers of lower growth. Consumer spending is expected to act as a drag on the economy as higher prices cut into spending power. This has the unemployment rate moving above its long-run level until 2027.
January 29, 2025
Reality Bites: Finding the Next U.S. Growth Dividend
With executive orders flying fast and furious from President Trump, investor optimism of an unleashing in animal spirits is kept in check by the reality of simple arithmetic on the economy. The median consensus forecast remains anchored towards 2% economic growth for this year and next. This marks a step down in momentum from the administration years of both Biden and Trump’s first term. Each of those three-year periods had near identical real GDP growth, averaging 2.7%, excluding the exaggerated results from the pandemic period (2020-2021).
November 01, 2024
Canada’s interest rate conundrum: Too much of a good thing
A call for a jumbo cut to head off mortgage reset rates must be assessed carefully. Surprisingly, roughly a quarter of mortgages will reset at a LOWER interest rate next year. For those renewing into higher rates, the shock might be milder than expected, given a 30% increase in home prices and wages. Years of debt repayments have also built equity room, which homeowners, including those with variable-rate-fixed-payments mortgages, can use to lower payments if needed.
October 25, 2024
Is 50 the New 25?
No, I’m not talking about age, although I’d greatly benefit from that view! I knew I would eat crow on Wednesday’s Bank of Canada (BoC) call with the high market pricing for a 50 basis point (bp) cut. There’s no regret in having conviction that risks need to be managed when the Bank delivers a rate cut that historically aligns to emergency periods. It could condition Canadians to expect data misses to be met with large monetary responses. I was hoping this would be clearly addressed in the press conference. Unfortunately, it was not, and there was little indication on where the bar is set for another 50 bps in December
