FCC delivers 2023 Economic Outlook

The chief economist with Farm Credit Canada says we are better off in the ag sector with a low Canadian dollar to the U-S.

The lower Canadian dollar makes our products more competitive in the global market.

J.P. Gervais expects to see a decline in the Loonie for the first half of the year before starting to recover/

"There will likely be a global economic slowdown of some kind. We've seen central banks across the world, it's not just happening in Canada and the US, raise interest rates to rein in inflation in all parts of the world really. So that should in and of itself slow down economic growth to the point that perhaps the demand for oil could slow down as well a little bit. And that explains sort of the drop in the first six months of the year for the loonie in our forecast."

In terms of the overall global economy, Gervais believes it will start to gain strength in the second half of 2023.

There's a lot of concern about a recession and what that will mean.

Gervais says while we'll see a slowdown, it will be different from what we've seen in the past because the labor market is so strong.