| Consensus | Consensus Range | Actual | Previous | |
| Month over Month | 0.4% | 0.3% to 0.4% | 0.5% | -0.1% |
| Year over Year | 1.1% | 0.4% |
Highlights
Following a 0.1 percent contraction in March, Canada's GDP growth rebounded to 0.5 percent in April, slightly more than expected by forecasters in an Econoday survey, and the largest monthly increase since July 2025. Overall, 14 of 20 industrial sectors expanded over the month across services and goods-producing industries.
Preliminary estimates for May point to a growth slowdown to 0.1 percent, with gains in finance and insurance and real estate and rental and leasing partly offset by decreases in wholesale trade and agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, similar to what happened in April.
In April, growth in services accelerated to 0.3 percent from 0.1 percent. Goods-producing industries rebounded 1.2 percent after contracting 0.7 percent in March. Both goods and services monthly growth rates were the highest since July 2025.
April's rebound comes after two consecutive quarters of contraction that reflected a weaker performance than the Bank of Canada had expected. However, the central bank anticipates a rebound in the second quarter, which today's data confirm.
Four of five goods-producing sectors posted gains in April, led by a 2.9 percent increase in mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction after a 1.4 percent decline in March. Utilities and contruction both rose 0.7 percent. Manufacturing was up 0.6 percent after edging down 0.1 percent the previous month, owing entirely to a 1.1 percent recovery in durable manufacturing, while non-durable manufacturing was flat. Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting contracted a further 1.5 percent, marking the seventh consecutive month of decline.
Industrial production was up 1.7 percent in April, more than recovering the 0.7 percent drop in March. Energy was up 3.1 percent.
Within services, public administration increased 0.7 percent on the month, the largest contributor to the public sector gain of 0.4 percent, with activity expanding across all levels of government. Transportation and warehousing rose 0.9 percent, coinciding with higher activity in rail and pipeline transportation. Crude oil and other pipeline transportation soared 4.8 percent, the largest gain since July 2020,"as operational disruptions that slowed crude oil movement in the first quarter of 2026 eased up".
Finance and insurance rebounded 0.4 percent after contracting 0.2 percent in March, as finance benefitted from strong deposits and mutual fund activity. Real estate and rental was up 0.2 percent after two months of increases of 0.1 percent. By contrast, wholesale trade contracted 0.3 percent, with the advance estimate pointing to further weakness in May. Retail trade was flat on the month after contracting 0.6 percent in March.
Market Consensus Before Announcement
Forecasters agree, as usual, with the Statistics Canada preliminary estimate, showing 0.4 percent growth on the month in April as Q2 gets off to a better start after no change in Q1.
Definition
Gross domestic product (GDP) is the broadest measure of aggregate economic activity and encompasses every sector of the economy. In contrast to most industrialised countries a monthly estimate is provided derived from the value added by labour and capital in transforming inputs purchased from other producers into that industry's output. Data for the reference month are usually released close to the end of the second month after the reference period.
Description
Instead of producing an advanced quarterly GDP figure and revising it the following two months, Statistics Canada releases monthly estimates of real GDP at Basic Prices. This release breaks down real output by seven goods-producing industries and twelve service-producing industries, and includes special aggregations such as business sector, non-business sector, and industrial production.
The sources of data used for monthly and quarterly estimates often differ and leads to very different estimates for certain items, such as price deflators. As a result, the monthly figures are not perfectly correlated with the quarterly numbers. However, the monthly data do give some idea of where the quarter is headed and especially in an uncertain environment, they are closely watched. While industrial production is closely watched in the U.S., it is not in Canada especially since the economy has become increasingly dominated by services. However, the goods sector is more vulnerable to wide swings in output compared to services, and exports remain dominated by industrial output.