Economy cools, but likely not enough for BoC

A roundup of the latest economic data indicates that Canada’s economy is slowing, but not sharply enough to bring down inflation, says Scotia Economics in a new report.

Based on recent data — including retail sales, manufacturing numbers, services indicators, and wholesale sales — the report estimated that gross-domestic-product growth likely slowed to a 1.5% annualized rate in the second half, following strong growth up until the second quarter.

“Trend Canadian economic growth is definitely slowing by a material mount but not fast enough to make any progress toward the goal of getting inflationary pressures in line with the [Bank of Canada’s] target,” it said.

Without actual GDP growth falling below the economy’s potential growth rate, “the BoC should still view the economy as stuck in material excess demand conditions with an incredibly strong job market,” the report said.

“Canada needs to open up a lot of slack in the economy in order to cool inflationary pressures that have both demand-side and supply-side drivers,” the report said, “and both of these sets of drivers should be targeted by monetary policy in order to align the two over time.”

James Langton

James is a senior reporter for Advisor.ca and its sister publication, Investment Executive. He has been reporting on regulation, securities law, industry news and more since 1994.