The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has again warned Canada of the risk of a price correction in its inflated real estate market.

In an interim global economic outlook issued Wednesday, the OECD said commercial and residential prices in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada have snapped back to levels preceding the 2008 fiscal crisis and its credit crunch triggered by home loan defaults in the U.S. subprime mortgage market.

OECD chief economist Catherine Mann said during a webcast broadcast from Paris that steeply rising property values can undermine financial stability if accompanied by a rapid increase in consumer borrowing.

Statistics Canada data last week showed Canadian household debt ratios at a record high in the spring against a backdrop of rising home values in Toronto and Vancouver — although a recent and sharp slowdown in Vancouver following B.C.’s imposition of a 15-per-cent tax on foreign buyers has moderated national home-price inflation.

In its outlook last June, the intergovernmental agency warned of a “disorderly housing market correction” in Vancouver and Toronto, which together make up a third of the Canadian housing market, that could dampen residential investment and consumer spending.

The OECD called for further market controls to be targeted regionally.

In its September outlook, the agency downgraded its 2016 global GDP growth forecast to 2.9 per cent from the 3 per cent it predicted in June and following a 3.1-per-cent average economic expansion worldwide in 2015.

It said average worldwide GDP growth of less than 4 per cent challenges governments’ capacity to make good on commitments to society in areas such as public pensions.

Mann said prospects for 2017 global economic expansion are only slightly better at 3.2 per cent, down from an earlier forecast for 3.3 per cent.

Canada, which suffered a big hit to exports output due to a wildfire in Alberta that disrupted oilsands production, has been downgraded to 1.2 per cent in 2016 from the OECD’s June estimate for 1.7–per-cent growth.

The OECD sees 2017 growth in Canada at 2.1 per cent, down from its earlier estimate of 2.2 per cent. Economists, however, expect growth to bounce back in the third quarter as heavy oil production returns to normal levels.

The OECD said that exceptionally weak global trade and financial distortions due to record-low interest rates are exacerbating a trend to slower global economic growth.

Mann also noted that the trade liberalization movement is under threat from isolationists, as some politicians vow to reverse jobs losses linked to trade deals such as NAFTA.

But the OECD in its outlook emphasized that multi-lateral trading arrangements net lower prices for imported goods, spur greater selection and encourage economic output gains.

It also said that governments have room to move on economic stimulus due to their lowered borrowing costs in the current interest-rate environment.

“The marked slowdown in world trade underlines concerns about the robustness of the economy and the difficulties in exiting the low-growth trap,” Mann said.

“While weak demand is surely playing a role in the trade slowdown, a lack of political support for trade policies whose benefits could be widely shared is of deep concern.”

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Meanwhile, Statistics Canada said wholesale sales climbed 0.3 per cent to $56.5 billion in July, the fourth consecutive monthly increase. Economists had expected a gain of 0.2 per cent.

Five of seven subsectors gained ground, led by the motor vehicle and parts subsector and the food, beverage and tobacco subsector.

Wholesale sales were unchanged in July in volume terms.