In a country as varied as Canada, national averages tracking economic performance don’t give a sharp picture of what is happening across the nation. This year, in particular, the regional landscape spans a huge range of situations.

Ontario, for the first time, is a “have-not” province. Fundamental changes are billowing through Canada’s industrial and financial heartland, with everything from the auto sector to banking caught in the downdraft. Quebec, so far, is weathering the storm, thanks to an ingrained habit of adapting to change and public spending on infrastructure that has been underway since a fatal bridge collapse in 2005.

Most of the Atlantic provinces, while expecting slower growth this year, are unusually well positioned to maintain solid fiscal health after several years of strong returns driven by high commodities prices and, in some cases, successful efforts to diversify local economies.

Perhaps most telling, our second annual Report on the Nation reveals, overall, a country that is performing surprisingly well, with much potential for growth in a future that is likely to see continuing global demand for energy, high-tech innovation and stable credit markets. Unemployment has yet to dip anywhere near levels reached in the recessions of the early 1980s and 1990s, while the new era of massive spending on infrastructure is likely to drive both job creation and a renewed economic base.

There is little question there is more pain to come, but there’s also reason to expect — as the Bank of Canada has recently forecast — that the downturn will end almost as quickly as it began. IE