“Coming off of a fairly pessimistic November, Canadians were a little bit more upbeat in early December due to a combination of those who are younger making financial adjustments for better savings, retail bargains for lighter budgets, and the festive season,” said John Wright, executive vice-president of Maru Public Opinion.
The survey was conducted Dec. 29 and 30, a few weeks after the Bank of Canada raised its benchmark lending rate a half point to 4.25 per cent. Maru’s index came in at 88 in December, down one point from November and well off the most optimistic result of 107, recorded in July 2021. The baseline for the index is 100. A score below 100 indicates negative sentiment, while a score above 100 is considered positive. Maru, a subsidiary of global research firm Maru Group, comes up with its household index by asking a representative panel of about 1,500 people a series of questions designed to probe how they feel about the economy’s prospects over the next 60 days. Maru started tracking Canadian households’ outlook in February 2021.
Asked if the economy was headed in the right or wrong direction, 63 per cent said the latter, unchanged from November. However, the number of Canadians who said they believe that the economy will improve in the next 60 days fell two percentage points to 37 per cent. Sixty-three per cent of respondents said they could muster two or more months’ of savings to cover an unexpected cost, down from 69 per cent from November. The number of respondents who said they were likely to make a large purchase such as a car or furniture declined six percentage points to 13 per cent in December, meaning 87 per cent were unlikely to make such a purchase in the next 60 days.
Revoke the GST. It's a huge factor on whether to buy something or not.