Poll: Most Canadians optimistic about the economy

According to a new Harris-Decima telephone survey, six in ten Canadians are optimistic about the country's economic recovery.

A new telephone poll, that was conducted between July 23 and July 26, shows that Canadians are feeling quite good about the country's recovery from the economic collapse. Respondents also believe that Canada will bounce back twice as strong as the United States, according to The Canadian Press. This new poll also shows that Canadians feel the same way as Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, who recently said this summer's quarter should produce at least a 1.3 per cent growth, which is the first since autumn of 2008. Harris Decima Vice President Jeff Walker told The Canadian Press, "We wanted to see: Are Canadians feeling that good about how things are? And what the data told us is, 'Yes, they are. They feel like things are really rebounding, that things are turning around, and that based on what they observe about the U.S. that it could be the case that we have twice the level of growth they do this year." Carney also said that the country's stimulus is making an impact and that the interest rate will stay at Japan-style rates, which is at 0.25 per cent, until the summer of 2010. However, Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has been quite wary and pessimistic about optimistic reports such as Carney's. Due to the fact that 45,000 jobs have been lost in the month of July and the unemployment rate is at 8.6 per cent. One factor to Canada's recovery is the US economy because its their largest trading partner. The Vice President of Harris Decima said, "There's a sense, number one, that there's demand for what we've got, maybe that's greater than demand for what (the) Americans' got. The other thing that people say when we talk to them about this is ... we were in solid economic position going into this in terms of our debt and deficit situation. So even though we had to incur a deficit through this period of time, our books were pretty solid going in. And, I think, a lot of people feel like if your books are pretty solid when you go into a bad time, you can usually weather it better." The telephone survey was conducted among 1,000 Canadians and has a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.