Consumer spending exceeds expectations as east-west divide grows
Posted Dec 22, 2011 7:20 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
New consumer spending data shows that while numbers are way up this fall from what retailers anticipated, the east-west economic divide is growing.
Canadian retail sales were up one per cent in October, despite weaker consumer confidence and record-high household debt.
Economists predicted it would only be half that.
The numbers show resource-rich Alberta and Saskatchewan led the growth, with retail sales in Alberta and Saskatchewan jumping over 10 per cent in the past year.
In Ontario and Quebec, those numbers are just 2.6 per cent and 1.9 per cent, respectively.
According to The Globe and Mail, most economists forecast Saskatchewan and Alberta will continue to boom thanks to high demand and prices for commodities produced in those provinces, namely, oil, potash and other agricultural products.
