Note that the agreement they signed is far smaller than what we analyzed (doesn’t include food, and more importantly services / credentials) but is meaningful. Services liberalization is where the larger gains are, we estimate. So more work to do.

the budget is full of these comparisons as well, so I'd suggest it isn't partisan. GDP is a common broad measure of economic activity.

good catch on the 'not' :)

Countless others, depending on what you value and what you want to measure. Not for me to provide a comprehensive list, but an example of a broad effort to quantify other things is the UN HDI: hdr.undp.org/data-center/...

Definitely! One should conclude from any of the above analysis that it implies living in Canada is 'bad', this is but one of countless relevant measures. And no one measure ever tells the full story. But, this is a relevant measure and improving it as the feds aim to do does come with benefits.

It was scheduled for 9:45 release. Not sure if that's a change to past practice, but wasn't early or anything this time.

To track all of this in real time, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce's Business Data Lab has a fabulour "nowcaster" of quarterly growth. Their current projection for Q3 is 0.4% (QoQ), right near the Bank's. Check it out here: businessdatalab.ca/bdlnow/ #cdnecon

In the short term, though, they do see growth in Q3 this year (so no two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction that some consider a "recession"). They see QoQ growth of 0.5%.

And much of this is due to persistently lower trade volumes between Canada and the US. They anticipate non-commodity exports to be nearly 6% lower than would otherwise have been the case by end of next year. (Assuming no worsening of trade policy.)

Did today's data release change anything for the Bank of Canada's rate decision next week? Probably not. Recent changes in the three core measures are similar in September to where they were in August.

But this doesn't mean energy is higher this year than last. Those items are still a net negative on the overall inflation rate in Canada, just not as large a negative as they were in August.

Excluding food/energy, the rate is 2.4% in September and unchanged from 2.4% in August. Decomposing the change, it's almost all due to energy prices.

I have no insight there. Very happy to defer to those who do.