Peter Armstrong

CBC News
Senior Business Correspondent
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[Peter Armstrong @armstrongcbc]

Want to know what's happening this week in finance/econ/money news? Have I got a newsletter for you. Read and subscribe here
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[Peter Armstrong @armstrongcbc]

I stole the keys to Front Burner and asked the amazing Frances Donald to tell me what the heck is going on with the economy
Podcast is out now

https://t.co/1hegXcCPr1

[tobi lutke @tobi]

Shopify launched to the public 20 years ago today

[Nostos @NostosLit]

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

[Paul Vieira @paulvieira]

To repeat: 2 quarters of negative growth is a *technical* definition of a recession. In Canada, the CD Howe think tank's business-cycle council tends to make the official determination of whether an economy is in recession -- just like the NBER does in the US. (1/3)

[Peter Armstrong @armstrongcbc]

Smart stuff here from Theo
Be wary of revisions.
The big story (IMO) is five straight months of decline in business investment

[Theo Argitis @theoargitis]

BREAKING NEWS: Canada's economy is still struggling to find growth. StatsCan data out today shows zero growth in first quarter (more precisely, the numbers show a minuscule contraction). The weak reading in first quarter of 2026 comes after a small contraction in fourth quarter of 2025.

Consumption remains solid, but business investment continues to shrink. Non-residential business investment has fallen for three of the last four quarters and is now at the lowest in two years.

Some will be quick to characterize this as a "technical recession". But we need to be careful here since data will get revised. Best way to describe this is an economy that has been essentially stagnant over past six months, in large part because of weak business investment.

[Peter Armstrong @armstrongcbc]

Hodgson says he expects a Final Investment Decision on Ksi Lisims “in a matter of months”

[Tom Tebbutt @tomtebbutt]

ROLAND GARROS: Tuesday
CT LENGLEN: 4th match after 5 a.m. ET Canada
#5 (4)Felix Auger-Aliassime vs
#57 Daniel Altmaier, 27, (GER).
CT 14: 4th match
#9 (9)Victoria Mboko vs
#69 Nikola Bartunkova, 20, (CZE).
CT 6: 4th match
#39 Denis Shapovalov vs
Q #115 Jaime Faria, 22, (POR).

[Tom Tebbutt @tomtebbutt]

ROLAND GARROS: Day Two, Monday May 25.
COURT 7
4th match after 5 am (ET Canada)
#22 (24)Leylah Fernandez vs
#79 Alycia Parks, 25, (USA).
H2H: LAF 2-0.
2025 Miami Open 7-6(1), 6-3.
2024 Aussie Open 7-5, 6-4.
Mboko, FAA and Shapo on Tuesday.

[Eric Nuttall @ericnuttall]

Our new base case is that the world will forfeit 2BN barrels of production...even if the Strait begins to open in July. The problem??? The world cannot lose 2BN barrels of production...the system will break well before then.

[Javier Blas @JavierBlas]

BREAKING: US total crude inventories fell last week ~17.8 million barrels (that's commercial and SPR stocks combined). On that basis, it's the largest weekly fall since data is available starting in 1982.

[Peter Armstrong @armstrongcbc]

Rate of Inflation rose to 2.8% year over year

[Heather Exner-Pirot @ExnerPirot]

Well I’m off to Greenland and hope to never think about the Alberta-Canada MOU again, so here are my parting thoughts.
I was speaking at the Peace Region Energy Show in Grande Prairie yesterday, the economic centre of the Montney Basin. While I talked about commodity cycles and MOUs and regulatory reforms, hundreds of entrepreneurs and small businesses were beside me doing the work of *actually* being an Energy Superpower. What a sophisticated business ecosystem it takes, from services to midstream to producers. We are lucky we have that.

It’s time to move past the politics and focus on the ground game. It’s time to build and produce and export and earn. What an opportunity Canada has in front of it.

[Peter Armstrong @armstrongcbc]

Canada lost 18,000 jobs last month

"Employment was little changed in April (-18,000; -0.1%) and the employment rate fell 0.1 percentage points to 60.5%.

The unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage points to 6.9%, as more people searched for work."

[Jackie Forrest @JackieForrest]

Lately, I’ve been asked why Canada should pursue an expensive greenfield West Coast oil pipeline when the cheapest option is to continue shipping to the United States.

Today, my op-ed in @globeandmail argues that, if a new pipeline is evaluated only on traditional commercial terms, it will never get built. A West Coast pipeline should be seen as insurance, providing access to tidewater and Asian markets when it matters most.

For a West Coast greenfield oil pipeline to happen, Canadians, governments, and industry will need new approaches to financing, ownership, and returns.

#marketaccess #oilandgas #cndpoli #bcpoli

https://t.co/CFL3Mitxq9

[Peter Armstrong @armstrongcbc]

@RichardDias_CFA Gotcha. Thanks rich!

[Peter Armstrong @armstrongcbc]

Maybe I am an idiot (don’t answer that) but shouldnt the rotation out of residential investment in Canada end up driving up investment in other sectors that need it?

[Charles Lammam @CharlesLammam]

Canada spends more on “residential investment” than any other advanced nation.

Here’s why being a real estate economy isn’t a winning position. Teaser: it’s costing us productivity and long term prosperity.

[Peter Armstrong @armstrongcbc]

@RichardDias_CFA Right. People invested in real estate because it made them money. They need to find something new to make them money
It just seems like a real opportunity that we don’t seem to talk much about.
Is that fair?

[Peter Armstrong @armstrongcbc]

@SamAMcKee @lukefoxjukebox Winning-the-draft-lottery-darts don’t count

[Peter Armstrong @armstrongcbc]

So does Mats report to Chayka who reports to Pelley?
Or is the senior executive advisor above GM?

[Sportsnet @Sportsnet]

Elliotte Friedman has learned the Maple Leafs have hired John Chayka as General Manager and Mats Sundin as Senior Executive Advisor.