Trudeau’s Covid Aid Pays Off With Consumer-Spending Rebound
- Government’s C$2,000 stipend helped cushion initial blow
- ‘We didn’t expect it to come back that fast,’ RBC CEO says
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Consumer spending in Canada rebounded sharply in the first half of June, thanks in part to tens of billions in government benefits paid to sidelined workers.
Consumer purchase activity from the end of May and through the first half of June was down about 13% from a year earlier, according to numbers crunched by Royal Bank of Canada and provided to Bloomberg. That’s a major improvement from April, when consumer spending was down about 30% as the virus shuttered all but essential businesses across much of the country, Chief Executive Officer Dave McKay said in an interview.