Posthaste: Canada may just pull off that elusive 'soft landing' — except for this province

financialpost.com:

Central bankers and economists have been talking about the elusive “soft landing” for some time, but a report out today suggests it might actually be achievable.

That’s the call of Deloitte Canada’s spring economic outlook.

“Despite the challenge of high debt loads in an elevated interest rate environment, the Canadian economy looks set to achieve the somewhat elusive soft landing, one where it avoids a recession while inflation returns to target,” said the report.

The reasons behind the forecast by chief economist Dawn Desjardins and her team include the strong economy to the south of us, cooling inflation, interest rate cuts by the Bank of Canada expected to start in June and a still steady flow of newcomers to support domestic demand.

On Thursday, Statistics Canada reported that Canada’s economy showed stronger than expected growth in the first two months of this year.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.6 per cent in January, beating analysts’ expectations of 0.4 per cent. The agency also expects a 0.4 per cent rise in GDP during February.

“Overall, it seems the economic slump we’ve found ourselves in for much of the past year is slowly coming to an end — and we can look forward to better economic conditions by the second half of 2024,” said Deloitte.

We still have to get through the first half, mind.

“Worrisome trends” persist as consumers continue to struggle with persistent inflation and higher interest rates, said Deloitte. According to Statistics Canada, at the end of 2023 debt payments were consuming 15 per cent of household incomes after mortgage rates nearly doubled from the start of 2022.

Equifax Canada also reports an increase in missed mortgage and credit payments, with mortgage delinquency rates