Mark Carney is defending his government’s economic performance after new data from Statistics Canada showed the country unexpectedly lost 84,000 jobs in February while the unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent.
The sharp decline marks the largest monthly job loss in Canada in four years and surprised economists who had predicted the labour market would add about 10,000 jobs during the month.
Speaking to reporters in Bardufoss, Norway, the Canadian prime minister pushed back against criticism of his economic management, pointing to longer-term employment trends.
“If you look at the performance of the labour market over the course of the last six months, we’ve created over 80,000 jobs net over the last six months,” Carney said.
He also compared Canada’s recent job creation with the United States, noting the difference in economic scale.
“The United States has created 6,000 jobs. The United States, 11 times the size of our economy,” Carney said.
Carney added that Canada’s current unemployment rate remains lower than when he took office about a year ago. After his election victory, unemployment climbed to 7.0 percent in May 2025, the highest level recorded since September 2016 outside of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The prime minister acknowledged that growing trade tensions with the United States have contributed to economic uncertainty. Ongoing trade actions from the administration of Donald Trump have created challenges for Canadian industries that depend heavily on cross-border trade.
“Given the scale of the trade actions and the uncertainty associated with them, that is causing big adjustments in the Canadian economy,” Carney said, adding that the government is investing across multiple sectors to strengthen growth.
During the 2025 federal election campaign, Carney promised to create higher-paying jobs and build the fastest-growing economy in the G7.
As part of that strategy, the Liberal government recently unveiled a defence industrial plan designed to generate 125,000 jobs by 2035.
Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, blamed the government for the latest job losses.
“We are saddened to see that Canada is in the weakest position after a year of Mark Carney,” Poilievre said while speaking in Windsor, Ontario. He acknowledged global economic challenges but argued that Canada’s response to tariffs and trade tensions has left the country lagging behind.
