Welcome back to This Week In Canada, where the economy looks pretty spiffy compared to the United States, Alberta’s job-growth engine has a new source of fuel, and our colleges and universities are officially awash in antisemitism. Let’s get to it.
When the summer began Canada was in a recession, at least according to the standard definition of two consecutive quarters of declining gross domestic product (GDP). Dour social media posts and Conservative Party messaging might make you think that the economy is a smoking crater. But the latest numbers tell a different story. (Spoiler alert: Take that, Donald Trump!)
Canada’s unemployment rate of 6.4 percent in July was the lowest in two years, helped by the addition of a surprisingly strong 75,000 jobs. The number of public-sector jobs actually shrank, meaning Canada became a bit less socialized and a bit more powered by the private sector and the self-employed. The same morning that Canada’s official data-collection agency announced the news, Americans learned from their government that the U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, while the job gains reported for April and May were revised downward. The unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.1 percent, but that was because hundreds of thousands of Americans left the workforce.
The split-screen job numbers delivered at least a momentary comeuppance to President Donald Trump, who had just taken his zillionth swipe at Canada during a speech in Las Vegas where he praised his own tariffs. “Canada’s nasty. They are. They’re nasty,” he said. “I love the people, but they’re nasty. Nasty leadership.”
