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In 2016 and 2017, the Bank of Canada added questions to the Business Outlook Survey on firms’ expectations for the magnitude of change in their sales volumes, number of employees, investment spending, input prices and selling prices. This backgrounder describes how the responses are aggregated and examines their relationship with macroeconomic and price measures.

Access reference material to accompany the Business Outlook Survey (BOS).

Each quarter, the Business Outlook Survey results are based on interviews with senior management of about 100 firms.

Results from the Business Outlook Survey and the Business Leaders’ Pulse indicate that firms’ sentiment has deteriorated. Domestic sales outlooks have weakened amid heightened geopolitical uncertainty and elevated costs related to fuel, while export outlooks have improved because of stronger demand for commodities. Investment intentions remain solid, but fewer firms plan to add staff. More firms now expect their input and selling prices to rise, reflecting higher global oil prices. Firms’ inflation expectations are also higher than in recent quarters. Oil producers have revised their capital spending and production plans upward, citing expectations of sustained elevated oil prices.

On Monday, July 6, 2026, the Bank of Canada will release the second quarter issues of the Business Outlook Survey and the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations.

The Business Outlook Survey is introducing two new summary indicators—one measuring firms’ outlooks for business activity and another measuring their outlooks for price growth. This backgrounder explains how the indicators are constructed, why they were developed and how they relate to macroeconomic series of interest.

Results of the second-quarter 2026 survey show that consumers’ near-term inflation expectations remain elevated amid ongoing trade tensions and rising concerns about oil and energy prices linked to the war in the Middle East. The CSCE indicator remains low as consumers still view the economic environment as challenging. High prices and economic uncertainty continue to weigh on household spending plans, particularly among households expecting the war to significantly raise inflation. At the same time, perceptions of the labour market improved modestly as fears of job loss eased, particularly in sectors highly sensitive to trade.

After the war in the Middle East began, futures markets hinted at how long oil prices could stay above their pre-war levels. Options on those futures further reveal how investors see the range and balance of risks around future oil prices—which helps central banks assess risks to inflation.

The Bank of Canada and the Department of Finance are announcing today that the maximum repurchase amount for Government of Canada Cash Management Bond Buyback (CMBB) operations will no longer be fixed at $2 billion per operation and instead be determined by available excess cash at the time of the operation.

This paper develops Monte Carlo likelihood-ratio tests for determining the number of regimes in Markov switching models. Unlike most existing procedures, which focus on testing one versus two regimes, the proposed methods allow testing an arbitrary number of regimes. They are valid in finite samples, robust to identification problems, and applicable to nonstationary, multivariate, and Markov switching GARCH models.