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OTTAWA — Could this be the tipping point for Canada’s economy, or at least the labour market? We’ll have to wait and see.

Certainly after a disastrous first quarter, the outlook suddenly seems a lot brighter. For that, we can thank an unexpected surge in hiring in May — the biggest gain in seven months, in fact, and more than six times larger than anyone had expected.

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And the majority of those new jobs were created in a previously unlikely location — Ontario, which had seen its prominence diminish in recent years as the manufacturing-focused economy turned to energy-heavy provinces for growth.

It’s probably too early to say Ontario is back in the drivers seat, but it indicates that the plunge in oil prices is helping to shift the focus from the West — not counting a still-thriving British Columbia — back to Central Canada.

“I think it’s pretty clear that the Canadian economy is going to rebalance over the next two to three years,” said Jeremy Lawson, chief economist at Edinburgh-based Standard Life Investments.