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The only thing that kept the nation’s economy from contracting was a build-up in inventories as companies stockpiled goods.

At the very least, the numbers suggest that heightened uncertainty — everything from the impact of higher interest rates to potential trade wars and oil-sector woes — has made a real impact on both consumer and business sentiment. The question now is what the weaker-than-expected data suggests about the economy’s ability to rebound back to more normal growth levels.

Most economists had been expecting the soft patch would come to an end by this spring and growth would accelerate closer to 2 per cent for the rest of the year. No one, however, expected the economy would need to come back from such a low point. The Bank of Canada’s latest forecast, from January, is for annualized growth of 1.3 per cent in the fourth quarter and 0.8 per cent in the first quarter, before the expansion accelerates back to above 2 per cent growth by next year.

Until recently, the economy had been doing relatively well even in the face of higher rates. It grew by a Group-of-Seven-best 3 per cent in 2017, and expanded at a healthy clip in the first half of last year — prompting the Bank of Canada to press ahead with higher borrowing costs.