Saint John, New Brunswick, stands alone in avoiding a recession this year among 14 small and medium-sized Canadian cities, the Conference Board of Canada said Tuesday.

“The global recession is punishing small and medium-sized CMAs across Canada,” says Mario Lefebvre, Director, Centre for Municipal Studies. “Saint John is the lone exception. It will lead these cities in economic growth for the second straight year, although its economy is expected to expand by less than 1%.”

Following real gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 2.9% last year, Saint John is forecast to post a more modest gain of 0.9% in 2009.

Among the remaining 13 cities covered in Metropolitan Outlook – Summer 2009, Kingston and three Quebec cities — Trois Rivières, Sherbrooke and Saguenay — can expect the smallest economic declines in 2009.

In Trois-Rivières, difficulties in the manufacturing industry, as well as soft activity in the services sector, will result in a 0.7% decline in real GDP and a 5% drop in employment this year.

With its highly export-oriented manufacturing industry affected by the deep U.S. recession, Sherbrooke’s economy is forecast to decline by 0.8% in 2009 — the city’s first contraction since 1991.

Saguenay’s real GDP is expected to decline by 1.2% in 2009, due largely to the struggling aluminum and wood industries. Employment will drop, as a result, by 2%.

Kingston’s service-oriented economy is forecast to shrink by 0.8% in 2009. Non-commercial services (education and health care), along with public administration and defence, are both expected to grow by 4.6%. On the downside, Kingston’s manufacturing sector is on track to record its ninth straight annual decline in output.

Elsewhere in Ontario, a turnaround in the manufacturing sector is not expected until the global economy begins to recover in 2010 at the earliest. As a result, cities such as Oshawa, Kitchener, St. Catharines-Niagara and London are going through a second consecutive year of declining economic output. The economies in Windsor and Thunder Bay, meanwhile, are contracting for the third and fourth consecutive years, respectively.

St. John’s was one of the fastest growing Canadian CMAs in 2008, but its economy is forecast to decline by 3.6% in 2009. Output in the goods sector-largely because of lower oil production-will decline by more than 11%. Nevertheless, employment and income will continue to grow this year, allowing the services sector to maintain growth.

Abbotsford, the sole western Canadian CMA covered in this edition of the Metropolitan Outlook, can expect to see its economy shrink for the first time on record (since 1987) as a CMA. Weak construction and manufacturing output will contribute to a 1.5% decline in real GDP.

IE