Analysts at TD Securities expects Canada’s industry-level GDP to remain unchanged in February following a robust 0.3% advance last month.

• Activity data for the month of February was mixed on balance, with retail and manufacturing sales helping to offset one another. Weather will have an adverse impact if the sharp pullbacks in residential construction and home sales offer any signal, although this will be partially offset by higher utilities output.
• Looking to the energy sector, mandated production caps began to roll off by an initial 75bpd in February, leaving the daily maximum production 250k barrels below 2018 levels, up from 325k in January. However, preliminary crude production figures show weaker output during the month, which suggests that transportation bottlenecks continue to impact upstream activity despite less intervention.