OTTAWA – Federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver says he won’t discuss the prospect of a recession because he fully expects the economy to rebound after it shrank in the first three months of the year.
Oliver’s testimony at a Senate committee today comes less than week after data showed the economy contracted by 0.6 per cent at an annualized rate in the first quarter.
He says he’s expecting the economy to bounce back in the second quarter as the Bank of Canada, the International Monetary Fund and private-sector economists have all projected.
WATCH: Canada’s GDP shrank at a 0.6 per cent pace in the first quarters. It’s the first contraction in nearly four years and it was worse than what economists predicted. Mike Drolet reports.
A recession is typically defined as two or more consecutive quarters of negative growth.
Oliver says the Harper government is still projecting a $1.4-billion surplus for 2015-16 despite the weaker-than-expected first quarter.
He also cites the central bank’s projection that the economy will have growth of 1.9 per cent in 2015.
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