The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Canadian's confidence in economic conditions declined modestly in the past few months, following a healthy surge over the Spring. This latest movement closely matches a similar trend in the United States, and reflects lowering expectations about what will happen over the next six months. Based on a nation-wide survey conducted by Decima Research Inc. in August, the Decima-Investors Group Index of Canadian Consumer Confidence now stands at 85.5, down 2.9 points since May. Despite this modest decline, consumer confidence remains higher than it has been for much of the previous 12 months. This latest trend closely parallels a similar drop in consumer confidence in the United States over this same period. "The consumer confidence index is down because the global and domestic news has been much gloomier in August than in May," said Charles Feaver, Vice President of Research for Investors Group. "Canadian consumers reported that their personal economic circumstances have not changed since the beginning of the year, but their optimism about the future for the Canadian economy has dropped back from the May survey, which took place shortly after the Americans declared victory in Iraq." This drop in consumer sentiment is evident across the country except Atlantic Canada, where the index has risen by more than four points and is now at 88.9, leading all regions. The decline in confidence is most notable in the population centres of Quebec (down 4.0), Ontario (down 3.8) and B.C. (down 4.1). Following a brief surge this Spring, consumers in B.C. are once again the least positive about economic and personal financial conditions. The decline recorded over the past quarter is most evident in how consumers view economic conditions down the road (over the next year and beyond), as compared with how they feel about current conditions. See 'Trend' P.# Con't from P.# This latest downward movement, however, is much softer than what has taken place in the U.S., where the expectations subindex dropped by almost twice as much (down 8.9 points) to 82.5. The U.S. figure remains well above the low recorded in March, driven largely by the just-launched war in Iraq. "This latest trend likely has a number of sources, as consumers in different parts of the country could pick from any of a number of recent events that could spell problems for the economy, whether it is SARS, the West Nile Virus, the BSE scare, forest fires in B.C. and the recent power outage affecting Ontario", comments Keith Neuman, Senior Vice President at Decima.
