Tracking Canada’s economic recovery from COVID-19

In these challenging times, EDC is keeping a close eye on how the pandemic is affecting Canadian companies and the global economy. To help you monitor the overall progress on the road to recovery, our new Canadian Economic Recovery Tracker offers timely insights from a variety of indicators—available several weeks before official statistics are released. For more information on the CERT methodology, click here.

After an unprecedented drop in global economic activity due to the pandemic, Canada’s economy began to recover in May with the gradual easing of lockdowns and many business reopenings. However, the pace of recovery slowed over the course of the summer. With the return to school in September, and the subsequent surge of COVID-19 cases in multiple provinces, there are now growing concerns that the recovery could face additional setbacks this autumn. Unfortunately, our latest CERT reading, as of Oct. 2, reflects these concerns and suggests the recovery has shifted into reverse—with this index of aggregate economic activity falling back to 19% below pre-COVID-19 levels, dragged down by rising infections rates and weakening financial markets.