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Friday’s GDP report made crystal clear how grimly Canada’s economy — one that contracted 0.2% in November – had been quietly tanking, which contributed to the Bank of Canada’s surprise move last week when it cut its prime setting rate.

While the bleak oil picture was fully developing, the thinking was that Canadians shouldn’t worry about the economy, manufacturing would carry the standard. However, manufacturing output, which accounts for 10.5% of GDP, fell even further than the energy sector, declining 1.9%, even though the Canadian dollar had already begun sliding, according to Statistics Canada.

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The oil, gas and mining activity fell 1.5% while a barrel of crude was trading as high as US$76.51, a price that is more than one and a half times as the current figure, US$47.86, according to StatsCan.

Concurrently, wholesale trade slumped 0.6% in November, a second consecutive decline following a decrease of 0.2% in October, coupled with a surprising drop in output of 0.4% in the finance and insurance sector, which had previously risen for five consecutive months.