As new data was released showing Canada's economy is deteriorating at a more rapid rate than earlier thought, the federal government was coming under new pressure to re-write the federal budget it tabled just 46 days ago.
Statistics Canada said in February more than 82,000 Canadians lost their jobs, bringing the total job losses in the four months since November to 295,000 — “a stunning pace in such a short period of time,” said TD Bank economist James Marple.
In the Jan. 27 budget, the federal government committed to “protecting or creating” 190,000 jobs. Canada's unemployment rate, at a generational low of 5.8 per cent just a year ago, is now 7.7 per cent, and forecasters believe it will easily hit 10 per cent before the end of the year.
The results “loudly confirm that Canada is in the heart of a recession, which is quickly rivalling that of the early 1990s and early 1980s,” said BMO Nesbitt Burns deputy chief economist Douglas Porter.
Also on Friday, Statistics Canada said the country's trade deficit in January widened to $993 million — a new record — as other countries bought fewer exports of Canadian energy or automotive products. December's trade deficit was the first since 1976. As Canadians spend more by buying imports than they earn by selling exports, federal tax revenues could be impaired.
“This government is going to have to largely rethink its position,” Liberal MP Ralph Goodale said outside the House of Commons after question period. “To give that kind of bafflegab as they did (in question period) with absolutely no sense of concern, no sense of urgency, no sense that they're being overtaken with events — that will just not wash with Canadians.”
[Read the rest of the story]
Technorati Tags: economy
It's even worse than that. Almost 111,000 full-time jobs lost in February. Hard to rebuild a consumer economy if everyone's working part-time.