Lates News

After experiencing a strong first quarter, retail sales in Canada continued to grow last month, but soaring gasoline prices seem to be increasingly eroding household budgets. Preliminary estimates released by Statistics Canada on Friday showed a month-on-month increase of 0.6% in retail sales in April, following a 0.9% increase in March. March's data was higher than the median forecast of 0.6% from economists surveyed. The data showed that retail sales in the first quarter of this year increased by 2.1%, achieving the seventh consecutive quarter of expansion and significantly higher than the 0.4% increase in the last three months of 2025. In terms of volume, retail sales in the first quarter still increased by 1.2%, but the historic surge in gasoline prices in March played a significant role in this. Statistics Canada did not provide specific details on the April preliminary figures, with the estimate based on feedback data from 52.1% of surveyed businesses. However, the March report indicated that the rising gas prices at the pumps may be increasingly squeezing out other consumer expenditures, and the strong momentum of consumer demand seen in the previous two months appears to be weakening.