Poilievre calls for emergency debate as Canada enters technical recession

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to hold an emergency debate on the economy after Canada slipped into a technical recession by some definitions.

Statistics Canada said Friday that the country’s GDP fell 0.1 per cent on an annualized basis in the first quarter of 2026, which follows a revised one per cent annualized decline in the fourth quarter of 2025. A technical recession is most commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.

“On Friday, you became the only leader in the G7 to have taken your country into a recession,” Poilievre wrote in a letter to Carney published on Sunday. “You promised you would deliver the fastest-growing economy in the G7. You delivered the only recession in the G7.”

Poilievre went on to say “excuses” about U.S.-imposed tariffs on various Canadian industry sectors and the Iran war  “do not work either.” The Conservative leader noted other G7 countries have not fallen into a recession even under tariffs and the effects of the war in Iran.

John Fragos, press secretary for Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, pointed to the United States’ trade actions and said tariffs have been raised to levels “last seen during the Great Depression.”

“Canadians do not need political theatre right now — they are looking for a plan,” Fragos wrote in an emailed statement to Global News.

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He went on to say the “plan is working,” stating the country is projected to have the second-fastest growth in the G7 for 2026 and 2027 – a projection made by the International Monetary Fund.

Following Friday’s report, some economists argued the weakness in the economy may not necessarily qualify as a recession.

The decline in real GDP last quarter was basically zero, TD economist Marc Ercolao told The Canadian Press. He also noted unexpected weakness in government spending, which was strong through 2025, explained the lower result seen in the first quarter.

1:55 Canada slips into a technical recession for first time since 2020

BMO chief economist Doug Porter said in a note to clients the institution would say “no, not really,” if asked whether the recent declines in GDP equal a recession, but he backed the argument the economy has struggled to “make any headway” in the past year.

While debate continues on whether Canada is in a recession, Poilievre pointed to other issues facing Canadians.

Among them, he pointed to an Equifax report showing insolvency volumes up nearly 19 per cent year-over-year, thousands of job losses in the first three months of 2026, and a report from Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank saying one-tenth of GTA residents are now using a food bank.

“As you can see, the two back-to-back quarters of declining GDP are not a fluke, anomaly or technicality. It is one of an avalanche of proof showing a collapsing economy with fast-rising costs,” Poilievre wrote.

“The recession is real.”

Sunday’s letter echoes comments Poilievre made on Friday after Statistics Canada released its data, saying his party was calling for Carney to introduce a bill to “reverse all of the economic policies his party has introduced over the last decade.”

Friday’s data further cemented predictions from economists such as Porter that the Bank of  Canada will likely keep interest rates where they are for the foreseeable future.

In his note, Porter also said the soft first-quarter GDP figures will likely put a “wet blanket” over rate-hike talk in financial markets, “as the economy is in no condition to deal with higher rates.”

—with files from Ariel Rabinovitch and The Canadian Press