Canada

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty says while the latest economic growth numbers are "modest" they underscore Canada's strong position on the global economic stage. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Jim Flaherty isn't ruling out stimulus spending to protect jobs and the economy in the event of another global economic crisis, but the federal finance minister stresses that growth in Canada, while "modest," is on track.

The Canadian economy grew at an annual rate of 1.8 per cent in the second quarter, Statistics Canada said Friday, while the government's Fiscal Monitor showed its budget is closer to balance than it was a year ago.

Those figures had Flaherty singing the cautious praises of Canada's GDP growth, the best among the G7 countries, while warning that global instability continues to loom.

And if the world is plunged into another crisis like the 2008 recession, growing the deficit through stimulus measures is an option, Flaherty said.

"What has been done before can be done again," he said.

"If we ran into a serious world economic crisis arising out of the European situation, or something else ... then of course we'd be responsive if we had to be, to protect the Canadian economy and protect Canadian jobs as we have done in the past."

In early 2009, the federal government pumped up spending by about $50 billion over two years through tax cuts, income supports and fast-tracking infrastructure projects, among other measures, to limit the damage of the global recession.

Even so, the country fell into a nine-month recession and lost about 430,000 net jobs before halting the slide.

In its monthly Fiscal Monitor, released Friday, the Finance Department recorded a shrinking deficit for the first three months of the 2012-2013 fiscal year, but cautioned that the fiscal outlook is at risk of deteriorating.

The department said the deficit for the first three months of the 2012-13 fiscal year was $2 billion, less than half the $4.2-billion recorded for the same period last year. The department said that's consistent with its plan to reduce the 2012-2013 deficit to $21.1 billion.

Statistics Canada said business investment was mainly responsible for keeping the economy afloat from April to June, as if on cue in the wake of scoldings from the Bank of Canada and federal government, which recently chided companies for sitting on an estimated $500 billion in spare cash.

The agency said investment in plant and equipment grew at its fastest pace since this time last year, up 2.3 per cent from the previous quarter. Purchases of transportation equipment and industrial machinery were particularly strong.