Canada is officially in a recession that's been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the C.D. But the Business Cycle Council still says that slowdown didn't meet the bar as an official recession by their metrics. In the council's view, this is the first recession Canada has seen since the financial crisis that began in 2008. The current episode is a good illustration why the the "2 quarters of declining GDP" definition of a recession is not a hard-and-fast rule. The official estimates of GDP for March and the first quarter of 2020 will be released on May 29.

Source: CBC News May 01, 2020 15:26 UTC