by Ephraim Vecina
Despite multiple headwinds and the continuous ravages of COVID-19, Canadian market activity and purchasing power will be able to recover quickly after the outbreak eases, according to outgoing Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz.
“We have to be able to manage the risks around those things, so I’m not going to dismiss [the worst scenarios],” Poloz told BNN Bloomberg. “But, me personally, I do think on balance what I’m hearing, the flow that I’m hearing, is a little too dire, a little bit overblown.”
In the greater scheme of things, the coronavirus will not be a fatal roadblock, Poloz said. While the national economy is still on track to decline at least 15% this year, “you should see a very rapid return to production” once the economy restarts in late 2020, he said. “I’m relatively optimistic, what I find, compared with what the talk is.”
These predictions dovetailed with other observers’ forecasts of speedy post-pandemic recovery across the board, pointing at the Canadian financial system’s robust fundamentals.
However, the pace of this recovery will depend on homeowners not selling their assets, according to TD Economics.
“Absolutely key to our forecasts is the assumption that listings mirror sales by dropping substantially in the near term and recovering gradually thereafter,” said TD economist Rishi Sondhi. “This puts a floor on prices and sustains relatively tight supply-demand balances across most markets, allowing for the resumption of positive price growth as provincial economies are re-opened.”