LILLEY: Canada’s economy sputtering into recession with Carney at top

Carney needs to focus on making Canada, not America, great again

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Published May 29, 2026  •  Last updated 5 minutes ago  •  3 minute read

Prime Minister Mark Carney participates in a news conference announcing the proposed National Electricity Strategy at the West Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 14, 2026. Photo by Hyungcheol Park /Postmedia Network

Mark Carney told an American business audience in New York on Thursday that he wants to help make America great again.

“Canada Strong will help make America great again,” Carney said to the Economic Club of New York.

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It would be better if Mr. Carney were focused on making Canada great again.

On Friday morning, Statistics Canada made it official, the Canadian economy is in a recession.

This isn’t a “technical” recession as some media and politicians are trying to spin it. We’ve had two quarters in a row of the Canadian economy shrinking and in the last year, we’ve seen the economy shrink in three of the four quarters.

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Unemployment rate up over last year

Our unemployment rate has gone up over the last year and now sits at 6.9% with about 13,000 more Canadians registered as unemployed compared to last year. Youth unemployment in the country sits at a staggering 14.3% up from 14.1% last year.

Bankruptcies are up 10.1% compared to a year earlier.

Food inflation remains persistently high and last month came in at 3.8%. The $100 worth of groceries that you bought five years ago now costs almost $130.

The rise in price for so many items is shocking.

Tomatoes up 20.9% compared to a year earlier while coffee is up 15.5%, beef is up 12.5%, carrots are up 10.5%, and pork is up 9.4%.

Higher prices, higher unemployment, increased bankruptcies and now Canada is in a recession.

“Mark Carney is now the only leader in the G7 to have plunged his economy into recession,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Friday on Parliament Hill.

“He’s been prime minister for four quarters now. The economy has shrunk in three of those quarters. He’s the only G7 leader who can say that. The economy is smaller today than when Mark Carney became prime minister a year ago. He’s the only G7 leader who can say that.”

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Canada’s economy weak for some time

Poilievre said that Carney can’t blame tariffs and trade uncertainty with the Americans because every other country is also dealing with those factors, but we’re the only G7 economy entering a recession. The truth is that Canada’s economy has been weak for some time, a point Carney himself made last year while seeking the Liberal leadership.

“Our economy over the last five years, has been driven by the big increase in the labour force, which was largely because of the surge in immigration and by government spending that grew over nine percent year-after-year after year, twice the rate of growth of our economy,” Carney said.

“So, our economy was weak before we got to the point of these threats from President Trump.”

Canada’s economy worse under Carney

After a year in office, things under Carney have not improved; they’ve gotten worse.

We hired a PM who was a former banker and business executive right out of central casting. He looked the part, he sounded the part, he convinced an awful lot of Canadians that he knew what to do to turn Canada’s economy around and that he could deal with Trump.

Instead, the economy is weakening and there is no sign of a deal with Trump.

Carney has been able to survive, thrive even, based off of feelings. His poll numbers are high, an 11-point lead in the latest poll by Leger for Postmedia.

That same poll found 59% of Canadian voters approved of Carney’s performance in running the government. That’s the feeling, that’s the vibe, and it’s mainly based off of Carney’s stance towards Donald Trump.

The hard numbers tell a different story, that with Mark Carney at the top, Canada’s economy is faltering.

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