Canada's budget officer sees 8.5% drop in GDP
Mr. Page told the House of Commons finance committee that, based on private-sector forecasts and his own assessments, he expected GDP to contract by about 8.5% in the first quarter of 2009 and by 3.5% in the second quarter.
In the budget, the government cited private-sector forecasters as saying GDP would shrink by 0.8% in 2009 as a whole.
"We provided a different, more detailed outlook for the first half of this year because we think that what we're seeing now is actually historic, in terms of quarter to quarter declines," Mr. Page told the committee.
A different outlook?? Nowhere in the article does it quote the source of Page's numbers. Or is he just pulling numbers out of his butt. I went to a source called Statistics Canada, here is a historical look at what has been happening to our GDP.
Here is what he said about the 4th quarter GDP for 2008:
OTTAWA -- Canada's economic performance in the fourth quarter of 2008 was actually much worse than suggested by a 3.4% decline in gross domestic product, the parliamentary budget officer said Wednesday.
We can see the breakdown of 2008 into quarters by Stats Canada:
He said our GDP decreased by 3.4% in the fourth quarter of 2008, Statistics Canada says it decreased by .8%, he is nitpicking the worst number and ignoring the less scary data. When you look at the data, our GDP increased by .5% in 2008. The guy is counting on Canadians being stupid. He wants more money for his department, I suggest this is not the way to get it.
What is this guy smoking, even in 2008 the GDP was positive, yet the guy is telling us that GDP WILL decline by 8.5% in the first quarter of 2009??? If he was from BC, I would think that he was smoking some of that BC Bud. Then he goes on to predict/scare us by saying it will further decline by 3.5% in the next quarter? That means from January to June of this year, our GDP will decline by 12%. Holy space cadet, the guy should be fired for shear stupidity.
