I’m surprised it’s taken this long to get here. Talking to a few friends up there, the country has been feeling economically depressed for the last couple of years.
The formal and traditional definition of a recession means a regression in GDP growth.
Economic malaise is orthogonal to the technical definition of a recession, though it is often correlated. And conversely, economic growth isn't always correlated with positive feelings (eg. South Korea and Canada in the 2010s)
This is not really true. Consumer confidence has a direct impact on GDP in terms of consumption. Lower confidence = lower consumption. Other components of GDP (Investment, Government spending, Net exports) can increase at the same time which can result in no net change, or even positive growth despite decreases in consumer spending. But saying consumer confidence (ie consumption) has no correlation with GDP is incorrect. This is basic macroeconomics.
I don't think this is dissimilar to the US to be honest. We just happen to have inflated and questionable revenue being reported at levels that gloss over the true underpinnings of the economy. I think this may be a leading indicator.
I really liked how Cory Doctorow framed what Canada could be doing with respect to digital sovereignty in his book ("Enshittification"). Doctorow argues that if Canada repealed its anti-circumvention law (Bill C-11), Canadian companies could legally jailbreak American tech products (John Deere tractors, the Apple App Store, etc) and sell those fixes worldwide, turning the right to tinker into a massive export industry and a form of digital sovereignty.
Economic malaise is orthogonal to the technical definition of a recession, though it is often correlated. And conversely, economic growth isn't always correlated with positive feelings (eg. South Korea and Canada in the 2010s)