Canada released the November 2009 Fiscal Monitor, which is not too different than the October release. However, the big exception is collections from GST, which is a very good proxy for retail consumption – while October 2009 to October 2008 was down 8.5%, in November, it was up 16.6% from November 2008. On a year-to-date basis, in October it was down 16.5%, while in November it was down 12.0%, a remarkable improvement, but still down from fiscal 2008.
Is retail spending increasing in Canada, or is this just statistical noise?
All other metrics, including personal income tax collection (a proxy for employment as most of the taxes collected are through payroll deductions), corporate tax collections (a proxy for corporate profitability) and GST collection (a proxy for domestic consumption) are down.
The other comment is that for the 8 months of the year, the fiscal trajectory suggests the deficit will be about $54.4 billion.