How fast is Canada's economy growing?
Latest release GDP, Apr & Q1 2026
Growth is running at 1.1% year-over-year, just below potential. Real GDP rose 0.5% in April after a soft first quarter, and while momentum is uneven, the data don't point to a recession underway.
Plate 01 Headline real GDP, m/m and Y/Y
As of Apr 2026
Headline growth is running at 1.1%, just below potential.
Monthly real GDP rose 0.5% in April, lifting the year-over-year pace to 1.1%. That now sits just shy of the 1.2% near-term potential growth estimate.
Plate 02 Contributions to quarterly growth, by bucket
As of Q1 2026
A standstill, not a recession.
Q1 GDP edged down 0.1% annualized, the second consecutive negative quarter after Q4 2025's inventory-led 1-point drag. At that scale Q1 growth sits closer to statistical noise than economic signal, and is well inside StatCan's typical revision band.
Plate 03 Real GDP by industry, services vs goods Y/Y + manufacturing vs mining and oil indexed to Jan 2023
As of Apr 2026
Resources have outrun factories by 20 percentage points since January 2023.
Mining and oil-and-gas output is up roughly 14% since January 2023; manufacturing is down about 6% — a 20-point split inside the goods economy. Services, which employ most Canadians, are running at about 1% year-over-year. The divergence maps cleanly onto Canada's regional economic geography: resource provinces pulling one direction, central-Canada factory floors pulling the other.
Plate 04 BoC MPR output gap
As of Q4 2025
The output gap reopened to 1% in Q4 — a hold story, not a hike one.
The Bank of Canada's output gap estimate widened to -1.0% in Q4 from -0.5% in Q3, the deepest reading since early 2021. The shortfall is demand-side: not enough spending to absorb the economy's productive capacity. A gap this size keeps the easing bias intact and takes a near-term hike off the conversation.
Plate 05 Total vs per-capita real GDP, indexed to pre-pandemic baseline (Q4 2019)
As of Q1 2026
Total output is up about 11% since the pre-pandemic peak — per-capita output is barely above it.
Total real GDP has grown about 11% since Q4 2019; on a per-person basis, output has risen about 1%. The 10-point wedge is the population story — Canada has added nearly 3.6 million people in that span, accounting for almost all of the headline growth without materially lifting living standards.