Canada's Economy in Review

Last week, we hosted a webcast to discuss the Canadian economy and how the market has been impacted with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as part of our FINSIGHTS webcast series for the Canadian market. Below are some of the highlights of the session. To hear the full story as well as other key topics influencing the Canadian financial industry, register for the series.

As we enter the final quarter of 2020, the global economic outlook continues to be dominated by COVID-19 and the economic toll of country lockdowns instituted around the world to stem the spread of the virus.

Due to the imposition of nationwide measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadian economic activity was sharply curtailed starting in March as discussed in one of my previous Insight articles. With businesses shuttered and residents staying home, the negative impact on the Canadian economy has been severe. As a result, GDP contracted sharply in the first half of 2020.

The median consensus estimates of analysts surveyed by FactSet show a strong growth resurgence in the second half of the year, but the economy will contract sharply in 2020 followed by a rebound in 2021. Still, the economic recovery is not projected to be robust enough to get the economy back to where it was pre-COVID until late 2021 or even 2022.