ANALYSIS: What Canada’s Latest GDP Growth Shows

While Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew slightly in the second quarter of 2024, several economists say the numbers show an over-reliance on government spending to encourage growth. “The only way that our economy is growing right now is because we’re adding more people to the economy, and then the fact that we also have a lot of government spending, mainly on employee compensation, or hiring more employees in the public sector,” said Jake Fuss, director of fiscal studies at the Fraser Institute think tank. The country’s GDP increased by 0.5 percent in the second quarter, after rising by 0.4 percent in the first quarter of 2024, Statistics Canada said in an Aug. 30 economic report. The report added that Canada’s per capita GDP fell by 0.1 percent in the second quarter, which was the fifth consecutive quarterly decline. Q2 saw the country’s population grow by 0.6 percent, or nearly 243,000 people, to more than 41 million, according to StatCan....