Investing.com – The Bank of Canada released its first-quarter 2026 consumer survey on Monday, showing households expect the war in the Middle East to weaken the economy and push up prices. The survey was conducted from February 5 to 25, before the war began, with follow-up phone interviews from February 24 to March 2. A special survey on the war\u2019s impact was conducted between March 26 and April 2.
\nBefore the war, consumer spending plans remained muted due to concerns about high prices and economic uncertainty, though consumers became less negative than in the previous quarter as trade tensions eased. The Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations indicator rose slightly from recent lows, with US trade actions having less impact on consumers. High cost of living continues to be a widespread concern, with consumers substituting toward goods made in Canada and domestic vacations while spending less on US goods and travel.
\nConsumers continued to view the labour market as soft, with fears of job loss still elevated. The perceived probability of losing a job increased marginally and remains above levels recorded before trade tensions began. Job loss concerns increased among workers in sectors where more than one-fifth of employees are in jobs whose tasks may be more replaceable by artificial intelligence.
\nNear-term inflation expectations before the war were largely unchanged from the previous quarter and remain above the survey\u2019s historical average. Expectations of strong food price inflation remain an important driver of high one-year-ahead inflation expectations. Long-term inflation expectations declined slightly from 12 months ago.
\nThe special survey conducted after the war\u2019s outbreak found a strong majority of households expect the conflict to harm the Canadian economy and lead to higher inflation. Among respondents, 21% have cancelled or postponed trips mainly due to increases in travel costs, and 28% have postponed or reduced major spending more broadly. If the war persists, consumers expect marked increases in gasoline and food prices over the next 12 months.
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\n#BankOfCanada #ConsumerSurvey #Inflation #MiddleEastWar #EconomicImpact #PriceHikes #CostOfLiving #LabourMarket #SpendingHabits #CanadaEconomy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Investing.com – The Bank of Canada released its first-quarter 2026 consumer survey on Monday, showing households expect the war in the Middle East to weaken the economy and push up prices. The survey was conducted from February 5 to 25, before the war began, with follow-up phone interviews from February 24 to March 2. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}