Canada’s economy lost momentum after a strong start to the year and is tracking below the central bank’s latest forecast, supporting expectations a first cut to interest rates could come before summer, the Wall Street Journal reported. Preliminary data suggest gross domestic product, a broad measure of goods and services produced across the economy, was essentially unchanged in March, Statistics Canada said Tuesday. That follows 0.2% growth in February GDP from the month before to 2.218 trillion Canadian dollars, the equivalent of $1.624 trillion.

Laurentian University's board of governors has approved a budget of just over $201.7 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year with $8 million being set aside to enact recommendations to bring the university up to modern operating standards following its insolvency, CBC.ca reported. The university declared insolvency in February 2021; the first public post-secondary institution to choose federal legislation meant to restructure commercial enterprises in financial crisis. As a result of restructuring, 69 undergraduate and graduate programs and 195 faculty positions were cut at Laurentian.

Bank of Canada officials said monetary policy easing is expected to be “gradual,” as they debate the timing of a pivot to rate cuts, Bloomberg News reported.

Canadian consumers haven’t tightened their belts this much in nearly a year, and there are no signs of spending growth since the start of 2024, Bloomberg News reported. Receipts for retailers were unchanged in March, according to an advance estimate from Statistics Canada released Wednesday. That followed a 0.1% drop in February. Taken together with the 0.3% plunge in January sales, the figures point to a flat reading in the first three months of the year, the weakest pace since the second quarter of 2023.

Canadian consumer prices reaccelerated slightly as expected due to higher gasoline prices, while core metrics showed further disinflation progress, keeping the central bank on track to pivot to easier policy as early as June or July, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index rose 2.9% in March from a year ago, up from a 2.8% increase a month earlier, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday in Ottawa. That matched the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. Excluding gasoline, the index slowed to 2.8% from a year ago, down from 2.9% in February.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is set to unveil an ambitious budget aimed at fixing housing affordability and helping young Canadians — but the big question is whether it will raise taxes to pay for it, Bloomberg News reported. The government has already announced at least C$46 billion ($33.4 billion), including C$17 billion in loans, for measures that include boosting housing supply, supporting artificial intelligence development and increasing defense spending.

Hiring in Canada ground to a halt last month even as the population continued to boom, pushing the country’s unemployment rate to its highest in years in a further sign the labor market continues to loosen, the Wall Street Journal reported. Employment nationally slipped by 2,200 in March from the month before, the first decline since a similar dip last July, while the unemployment rate was 0.3 percentage point higher at 6.1%, Statistics Canada reported Friday.

British Columbia’s credit rating was cut to AA- by S&P Global Ratings with a negative outlook — its third downgrade in three years — after the provincial government decided to ramp up borrowing, Bloomberg News reported.

Some Canadians are feeling a little more optimistic about their debt with the prospect of interest rate cuts on the horizon, said MNP Ltd, the Toronto Star reported. The insolvency firm’s Consumer Debt Index metric showed a significant rebound in the first quarter of 2024 after 12 months of low scores, according to its latest report. More than a quarter of Canadians say that they perceive their current debt situation as better than a year ago. Fewer Canadian households than last quarter, at 41 per cent, say they are concerned about their current level of debt.

Canada’s labor market unexpectedly lost jobs and the unemployment rate jumped to the highest level in more than two years, signaling greater slack in the economy that will test the central bank’s patient stance on rate cuts, Bloomberg News reported. The country shed 2,200 jobs in March and the unemployment rate rose 0.3 percentage points to 6.1%, Statistics Canada reported Friday in Ottawa. The figures missed expectations for a gain of 25,000 positions and a jobless rate of 5.9%, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists.