Recession bit all but PEI, Yukon

Tavia Grant

Globe and Mail Update Published on Wednesday, Apr. 28, 2010

The recession bit virtually every area of Canada from coast to coast last year with the exception of two small economies: Prince Edward Island and Yukon.

Both places saw gross domestic product actually expand last year, by 0.6 per cent and 1.4 per cent, respectively, Statistics Canada said Wednesday in a 2009 review of provincial economies. That extends previous-year gains.

A recession is generally defined as two straight quarters of negative growth. Today’s report suggests both PEI and Yukon may have escaped the recession, though Statscan cautioned that it doesn’t track quarterly GDP by province.

“They have apparently escaped the ravages of the recession,” said Statscan’s Bruce Cooke.

In PEI’s case, higher output in aquaculture and “higher lobster landings” more than offset a decline in agriculture. Government service industries and retail trade also supported the economy. Even manufacturing eked out a gain, as transportation equipment industries’ advanced.

In Yukon, mining activity and construction related to a new mine added to growth. Completion of work on transmission lines allowed more electric power generation. In service industries, the public sector expanded.

Comparing smaller economies, where a single big project can boost or depress GDP numbers, with larger economies can be misleading and it’s difficult to quantify, by that measure, exactly which province was hit the hardest.

But in terms of straight GDP, the biggest decline was in Newfoundland, where the economy shrank 10.2 per cent as various projects wrapped up. “The decline was mostly due to a sharp drop in oil extraction and metal ore mining operations, with the latter affected by a strike,” the report said.

Nunavut’s economy contracted 10.6 per cent, largely because construction activity tumbled 41 per cent as work finished at the Meadowbank gold mine. “By year’s end, the mine had not begun production, and Nunavut had no producing gold or diamond mine for the first time since the territory was formed,” the report said.

The national economy declined 2.9 per cent last year.

A separate report on employment showed the country’s employment fell last year after sixteen straight years of increases. The hardest hit segments of the population last year were youth, men, recently-arrived immigrants and Aboriginal people living off reserve.