How often do official forecasts come true?
Budgets, interest-rate decisions and public plans rest on forecasts. Comparing each projection with later evidence makes its assumptions and limits easier to judge.
A useful forecast record keeps the date of the prediction, its horizon and the later estimate in view. It distinguishes genuine forecasts from estimates made during or after the period, and forecasting error from revisions to the statistics themselves.
Timing changes what a forecast comparison can tell us
The July 30, 2025 Monetary Policy Report put real GDP growth in 2025 Q4 at 0.7% year over year. The later Statistics Canada estimate in this edition is 0.697%, a difference of +0.003 percentage points. That is a close comparison for one target, not evidence of an institution-wide success rate.
The five held MPR vintages contain 35 quarterly path points. Only 1 was published before its quarter began and has a matched outturn here. Another 4 were published during their target quarters. Those estimates had part of the quarter’s information already available, so their distances are shown separately in the table.
On narrow screens, scroll charts and tables sideways to read all values.
| MPR published | Target quarter | Timing | Days before start | MPR path | Later estimate | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 30, 2025 | 2025 Q3 | During quarter | -29 | 0.9% | 1.654% | -0.754 pp |
| July 30, 2025 | 2025 Q4 | Before quarter | 63 | 0.7% | 0.697% | +0.003 pp |
| October 29, 2025 | 2025 Q4 | During quarter | -28 | 0.5% | 0.697% | -0.197 pp |
| January 28, 2026 | 2026 Q1 | During quarter | -27 | 0.6% | 0.063% | +0.537 pp |
| April 29, 2026 | 2026 Q2 | During quarter | -28 | 1.2% | 1.128% | +0.072 pp |
Days before start = target-quarter start minus publication date; negative values mean the quarter had already begun. “During quarter” is a calendar classification, not a reconstruction of the Bank’s exact information set. No estimate published after a quarter ended enters these five comparisons. This exclusion does not mean the official outturn was already available when the Bank published its path.
Inspect the outturn calculation and the comparison denominator
| Target | Level | Same quarter, prior year | Derived year-over-year change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 Q3 | 2,507,754 | 2,466,957 | 1.653738% |
| 2025 Q4 | 2,501,573 | 2,484,261 | 0.696867% |
| 2026 Q1 | 2,503,604 | 2,502,038 | 0.062589% |
| 2026 Q2 | 2,524,127 | 2,495,975 | 1.127896% |
Growth = (quarterly real GDP level ÷ the level four quarters earlier − 1) × 100. Distance = MPR growth − observed growth, in percentage points. The annual-rate scaling cancels in the ratio. No percentage-of-a-percentage is computed. All four observed rates use the same held GDP edition, whose latest included release is August 28, 2026; it was captured October 4, 2026. These are revised estimates, not first-release values or final truth.
The full denominator is 35 points = 1 mature pre-quarter forecast + 4 mature within-quarter estimates + 17 post-quarter points + 13 points without a matched outturn. Repeated captures of the same MPR are not new vintages. We do not pool these categories into a hit rate, average error or institutional ranking.
| MPR published | Target quarter | Timing | MPR path |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 30, 2025 | 2026 Q4 | Before quarter | 1.4% |
| July 30, 2025 | 2027 Q4 | Before quarter | 2.1% |
| October 29, 2025 | 2026 Q4 | Before quarter | 1.6% |
| October 29, 2025 | 2027 Q4 | Before quarter | 1.6% |
| January 28, 2026 | 2026 Q4 | Before quarter | 1.4% |
| January 28, 2026 | 2027 Q4 | Before quarter | 1.7% |
| April 29, 2026 | 2026 Q4 | Before quarter | 1.8% |
| April 29, 2026 | 2027 Q4 | Before quarter | 1.4% |
| April 29, 2026 | 2028 Q4 | Before quarter | 1.9% |
| July 15, 2026 | 2026 Q3 | During quarter | 0.7% |
| July 15, 2026 | 2026 Q4 | Before quarter | 1.4% |
| July 15, 2026 | 2027 Q4 | Before quarter | 1.9% |
| July 15, 2026 | 2028 Q4 | Before quarter | 1.8% |
| MPR published | Target quarter | MPR path |
|---|---|---|
| July 30, 2025 | 2024 Q4 | 2.3% |
| July 30, 2025 | 2025 Q1 | 2.3% |
| July 30, 2025 | 2025 Q2 | 1.3% |
| October 29, 2025 | 2024 Q4 | 2.3% |
| October 29, 2025 | 2025 Q1 | 2.3% |
| October 29, 2025 | 2025 Q2 | 1.2% |
| October 29, 2025 | 2025 Q3 | 0.7% |
| January 28, 2026 | 2024 Q4 | 3.1% |
| January 28, 2026 | 2025 Q2 | 1.6% |
| January 28, 2026 | 2025 Q3 | 1.4% |
| January 28, 2026 | 2025 Q4 | 0.7% |
| April 29, 2026 | 2025 Q3 | 1.6% |
| April 29, 2026 | 2025 Q4 | 0.7% |
| April 29, 2026 | 2026 Q1 | 0.6% |
| July 15, 2026 | 2025 Q4 | 0.7% |
| July 15, 2026 | 2026 Q1 | -0.1% |
| July 15, 2026 | 2026 Q2 | 0.8% |
The broader question remains open. A defensible frequency claim needs a predeclared set of targets, comparable lead times, a tolerance defining “comes true”, and a fixed outturn-vintage rule. The original projection record preserves the full paths. The Resolution ledger also holds fiscal projections awaiting audited settlement and GDP measurement revisions. A revision to an estimate of the past is not a forecast error.
Sources: July 30, 2025 MPR path; October 29, 2025 MPR path; January 28, 2026 MPR path; April 29, 2026 MPR path; July 15, 2026 MPR path; captured August 5, 2026. Statistics Canada, table 36-10-0104-01, expenditure-based real GDP at market prices. MPR rates are published to one decimal place; showing a computed distance to three decimals does not imply equally precise forecasts. The two issuers name the same target quantity and quarter; this does not imply identical estimation methods.
Institutional projections on file
Canada's Housing Supply Shortages: Estimating what is needed to solve Canada's housing affordability crisis by 2030 (with 2023 update)
Restore housing affordability to early-2000s levels by 2030
cumulative additional units above the baseline outlook 3,500,000.
Measure: additional units beyond projection.
Canada's Housing Supply Shortages: Moving to a New Framework
Restore housing affordability to 2019 (pre-pandemic) levels by 2035, on a rolling 10-year horizon
total annual requirement 478,000; cumulative additional units above the baseline outlook 2,600,000.
Measure: net completions.
Historical 2025 model, retained for its dated comparison. The current CMHC model uses annual starts through 2036; this older model uses net completions through 2035.
Greenhouse gas emissions projections — Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators, 2025 vintage
The preceding annual vintage of the same ECCC projection, sourced to Canada's First Biennial Transparency Report under the Paris Agreement and the National Inventory Report 1990–2022. Retained, unedited, so the issuer's successive statements can be read against each other and against what was subsequently observed.
Measure: mt co2e target accounting basis.
Greenhouse gas emissions projections — Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators, 2026 vintage
Environment and Climate Change Canada's own annual projection of national greenhouse gas emissions to 2035, on the accounting basis its targets are assessed against. Two scenarios, published side by side and never combined: 'With measures' includes policies funded, legislated and implemented by federal, provincial and territorial governments up to November 2025, plus the LULUCF accounting contribution; 'With additional measures' adds policies under development but not yet fully implemented, plus the projected effect of nature-based climate solutions and agriculture measures.
Measure: mt co2e target accounting basis.
Where institutions disagree
On the record
Parliamentary Budget Officer publishes an independent estimate of the 2030 emissions gap
Estimating Canada's 2030 Emissions Gap (RP-2526-021-S), by Nasreddine Ammar. The PBO estimates the gap between Canada's projected 2030 emissions and the legislated target at 49 to 102 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent. The report is the second institutional projection of the same quantity on the Canadian record and is restated as a modelled benchmark (pbo-emissions-gap-2025-11), never adjudicated against the Government's own.
The projection record
This record shows what an institution published and how its figures compare across versions or with later outcomes. It does not rank institutions or grade their forecasting ability. See the full public Resolution record →
The Bank of Canada's real GDP growth projection, across five Monetary Policy Report vintages, held against Statistics Canada's own outturn where one exists
Canada's real GDP growth (year-over-year percentage change), as the Bank of Canada's staff economic projection stated it in five successive Monetary Policy Reports (July 2025, October 2025, January 2026, April 2026, July 2026), for quarters that have since been observed by Statistics Canada and for quarters that have not.
comparable · difference -0.753738 · cross-issuer. Numeric difference: the Bank's projected value minus Statistics Canada's currently published year-over-year estimate for the same quarter, in percentage points. A percentage difference is not computed: both quantities ar…
comparable · difference -0.953738 · cross-issuer. Numeric difference: the Bank's projected value minus Statistics Canada's currently published year-over-year estimate for the same quarter, in percentage points. A percentage difference is not computed, for the same reaso…
comparable · difference -0.253738 · cross-issuer. Numeric difference: the Bank's projected value minus Statistics Canada's currently published year-over-year estimate for the same quarter, in percentage points. A percentage difference is not computed, for the same reaso…
comparable · difference -0.053738 · cross-issuer. Numeric difference: the Bank's projected value minus Statistics Canada's currently published year-over-year estimate for the same quarter, in percentage points. A percentage difference is not computed, for the same reaso…
comparable · difference 0.003133 · cross-issuer. Numeric difference: the Bank's projected value minus Statistics Canada's currently published year-over-year estimate for the same quarter, in percentage points. A percentage difference is not computed, for the same reaso…
comparable · difference -0.196867 · cross-issuer. Numeric difference: the Bank's projected value minus Statistics Canada's currently published year-over-year estimate for the same quarter, in percentage points. A percentage difference is not computed, for the same reaso…
comparable · difference 0.003133 · cross-issuer. Numeric difference: the Bank's projected value minus Statistics Canada's currently published year-over-year estimate for the same quarter, in percentage points. A percentage difference is not computed, for the same reaso…
comparable · difference 0.003133 · cross-issuer. Numeric difference: the Bank's projected value minus Statistics Canada's currently published year-over-year estimate for the same quarter, in percentage points. A percentage difference is not computed, for the same reaso…
comparable · difference 0.537411 · cross-issuer. Numeric difference: the Bank's projected value minus Statistics Canada's currently published year-over-year estimate for the same quarter, in percentage points. A percentage difference is not computed, for the same reaso…
comparable · difference 0.537411 · cross-issuer. Numeric difference: the Bank's projected value minus Statistics Canada's currently published year-over-year estimate for the same quarter, in percentage points. A percentage difference is not computed, for the same reaso…
comparable · difference 0.003133 · cross-issuer. Numeric difference: the Bank's projected value minus Statistics Canada's currently published year-over-year estimate for the same quarter, in percentage points. A percentage difference is not computed, for the same reaso…
comparable · difference -0.162589 · cross-issuer. Numeric difference: the Bank's projected value minus Statistics Canada's currently published year-over-year estimate for the same quarter, in percentage points. A percentage difference is not computed, for the same reaso…
comparable · difference 0.4 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later Monetary Policy Report's projected value minus the earlier one's, for the same target quarter, in percentage points. This is a same-issuer vintage comparison: it states how the Bank's own vi…
comparable · difference -0.7 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later Monetary Policy Report's projected value minus the earlier one's, for the same target quarter, in percentage points. Same-issuer vintage comparison; no Statistics Canada outturn exists yet f…
- This entry restates two issuers' own published figures side by side: the Bank of Canada's staff economic projection and Statistics Canada's national-accounts estimate. Countability adjudicates neither. Where the two differ, the difference is shown as a signed number in percentage points; no direction is described as a better or worse forecast.
- Real GDP growth is a single target concept measured two different ways here -- a model projection and a measured national-accounts aggregate -- and the two are not produced by identical methods. This entry treats the two as comparable because both name the same target quantity for the same period, not because the two issuers compute it identically; each comparison below records its own basis.
- Statistics Canada's own year-over-year figures used to resolve the Bank's projections (the quarterly outturn values on this entry) are the currently published (2026-05-29 release) estimates, not a real-time vintage history. This platform has not identified a real-time table for expenditure-based GDP (36-10-0104) the way it has for basic-price GDP by industry (36-10-0491, the table behind the companion GDP first-estimate revisions lineage in this register); the values used here may themselves still revise in a later Statistics Canada release, and this entry does not yet distinguish 'the Bank's projection differed from an outturn that has since moved' from 'the Bank's projection differed from a settled figure.'
The federal budgetary balance for fiscal 2025-26, across four Finance Canada projection vintages, before the audited Public Accounts settle it
Canada's federal budgetary balance (surplus/deficit) for fiscal year 2025-26, as the Department of Finance Canada's own summary fiscal outlook stated it in four successive publications -- Budget 2024, the 2024 Fall Economic Statement, Budget 2025, and the Spring Economic Update 2026 -- each read from that publication's own headline fiscal table. No audited outcome exists yet: the Public Accounts of Canada for 2025-26 will settle this fiscal year in autumn 2026, and this entry pins the projection lineage on the record before that settlement, adjudicating none of it.
comparable · difference -3.3 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later publication's projected value minus the earlier one's, for the same fiscal year (2025-26), in billions of Canadian dollars. A negative number means the later projection is a larger deficit t…
comparable · difference -36.1 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later publication's projected value minus the earlier one's, for the same fiscal year (2025-26), in billions of Canadian dollars. Same-issuer vintage comparison; no audited outcome exists yet. pct…
comparable · difference 11.4 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later publication's projected value minus the earlier one's, for the same fiscal year (2025-26), in billions of Canadian dollars. A positive number means the later projection is a smaller deficit …
comparable · difference -28.0 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the latest captured projected value minus the first projected value, for fiscal 2025-26, in billions of Canadian dollars (the cumulative movement across all three re-projections). This is the entry's …
comparable · difference 11.623 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the Fiscal Monitor's unaudited year-end observation minus Finance Canada's final pre-settlement projection, for fiscal 2025-26, in billions of Canadian dollars. A positive number means the observed ye…
- No audited outcome exists yet. This entry is a pinned projection lineage, not a projection-vs-outturn resolution: every value is one of Finance Canada's own successive projections for fiscal 2025-26, and none is an observed or audited result. The Public Accounts of Canada for 2025-26 (expected autumn 2026, issued by the Receiver General) will settle this fiscal year; when it does, a later reading records the audited outcome and the projection-vs-outturn resolution steps -- nothing here is edited in place. The entry is registered now so the four first-published projections are on the record, hash-pinned, before the outcome that would otherwise reframe them exists.
- Every value is restated exactly as Finance Canada first published it and none has been attested by an independent auditor. These two provenance axes are carried on every value so that, when the audited Public Accounts outcome is added, its own assurance and its own basis are stated on the same two axes and never silently conflated with these projections.
- This entry compares Finance Canada against itself: the same headline quantity, the same fiscal year, four successive projection vintages of the same summary fiscal outlook. It is a projection-drift record, not a disagreement between institutions -- the pace and direction at which one issuer's own projection for a single year moved as it re-forecast. No direction of movement is described as more or less sound; the signed difference in billions is the disclosed comparison.
Statistics Canada's own December 2025 real GDP estimate, across four release vintages
Canada's real gross domestic product at basic prices, all industries, chained (2017) dollars, seasonally adjusted at annual rates, for the reference month of December 2025 (table 36-10-0491) -- as Statistics Canada itself published it, then revised it, across four successive monthly releases of the same real-time table.
comparable · difference 2094000000 · same issuer. Numeric difference: later release's value minus earlier release's value, in dollars; Percentage difference: that difference divided by the earlier release's value. A positive number means the later release's estimate is …
comparable · difference -11000000 · same issuer. Numeric difference: later release's value minus earlier release's value, in dollars; Percentage difference: that difference divided by the earlier release's value.
comparable · difference -1439000000 · same issuer. Numeric difference: later release's value minus earlier release's value, in dollars; Percentage difference: that difference divided by the earlier release's value.
comparable · difference 644000000 · same issuer. Numeric difference: latest captured value minus the first published value, in dollars (the cumulative revision across all three captured re-releases); Percentage difference: that difference divided by the first published…
- This entry compares Statistics Canada against itself: the same table, the same reference month, four successive monthly releases of the same real-time cube. It is a revision record, not a disagreement between institutions -- the pace at which one issuer's own estimate settles as more source data arrives -- the platform's own Statistics Canada reconnaissance names this as a distinct, previously unnamed thing: 'an issuer's own number changed, and here is by how much'.
- Real GDP at basic prices, by industry (table 36-10-0491) is a distinct measure from the expenditure-based real GDP (table 36-10-0104) this platform's own fiscal indicators and the companion Bank of Canada GDP-projections lineage in this register use. The two are not interchangeable and this entry does not equate them.
- This example was not chosen for a dramatic miss. The four-vintage revision path for December 2025 is small (a cumulative +0.03% from first publication to the most recent release captured here) and non-monotonic (up, essentially flat, then down) -- an honest test of the schema's point-geometry and same-issuer resolution structure, not a selected outlier.
Statistics Canada's own monthly GDP estimates, across eleven years of release vintages
Statistics Canada publishes a real-time table that keeps every vintage of its monthly GDP by industry estimates -- 137 releases between March 2015 and June 2026. Measured across the 130 reference months whose first estimate is observable in that record, no first estimate of 0.20 percentage points or larger has later reversed sign, while roughly a third of first estimates smaller than 0.10 percentage points have. This entry holds the vintage lineage that base rate is measured on, traced through the reference month with the longest observable history: January 2015, whose published growth rate settled over its first twenty months and then changed on just six further dates in nine and a half years -- every one of them an annual or comprehensive revision release, and none in between.
comparable · difference -0.2693 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later release's published month-over-month change minus the earlier release's, in percentage points. A positive number means the later release put the month higher than the earlier release did; no…
comparable · difference 0.0055 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later release's published month-over-month change minus the earlier release's, in percentage points. A positive number means the later release put the month higher than the earlier release did; no…
comparable · difference -0.0463 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later release's published month-over-month change minus the earlier release's, in percentage points. A positive number means the later release put the month higher than the earlier release did; no…
comparable · difference 0.0041 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later release's published month-over-month change minus the earlier release's, in percentage points. A positive number means the later release put the month higher than the earlier release did; no…
comparable · difference -0.0073 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later release's published month-over-month change minus the earlier release's, in percentage points. A positive number means the later release put the month higher than the earlier release did; no…
comparable · difference 0.002 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later release's published month-over-month change minus the earlier release's, in percentage points. A positive number means the later release put the month higher than the earlier release did; no…
comparable · difference -0.001 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later release's published month-over-month change minus the earlier release's, in percentage points. A positive number means the later release put the month higher than the earlier release did; no…
comparable · difference 0.0 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later release's published month-over-month change minus the earlier release's, in percentage points. A positive number means the later release put the month higher than the earlier release did; no…
comparable · difference -0.3123 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the later release's published month-over-month change minus the earlier release's, in percentage points. A positive number means the later release put the month higher than the earlier release did; no…
- This entry compares Statistics Canada against itself: one table, one reference month, the issuer's own successive releases of the same real-time cube. It is a revision record, not a disagreement between institutions, and not a judgment about Statistics Canada. In the issuer's own words about this table: "The revisions in the real-time data tables are not corrections to errors. They represent a normal step in the statistical process, in which statistical agencies produce new vintages of higher quality data as new information becomes available." Nothing here is offered as a measure of the issuer's quality, in either direction.
- "First estimate" means the first estimate for a month recorded in this table's vintage record. It is not the first public number for the month. Statistics Canada publishes an advance estimate of real GDP by industry for the following month inside each monthly Daily release -- roughly a month before that month's official first estimate reaches this table. Verbatim, from the release of 2026-06-30: "Advance information indicates that real GDP by industry increased 0.1% in May." That same release went on to state that, owing to its preliminary nature, the advance estimate would be updated with the official May figure at the end of the following month. This record holds no vintage past 2026-06-30 and does not assert what that later release contained. The advance estimate and its own revision are outside this record and are not measured here.
- The sign-reversal figures in the summary are a base rate over an observed set of 130 reference months, not a forecast and not a probability about any named future month. In full, excluding the six months of the 2020 pandemic window, which are held apart rather than averaged in: of 42 months whose first estimate was smaller than 0.10 percentage points, 15 later read the other way; of 23 between 0.10 and 0.20, three did; of 65 at 0.20 or above, none did. Including the pandemic window, that last figure is none of 71. Restricting instead to months that have since had at least 24 further releases -- the months whose revision is largely done -- it is none of 54 excluding the pandemic window and none of 60 including it. Each of those four counts is on its own base, and the bases are not interchangeable. All eighteen reversals in the record came from first estimates under 0.20 percentage points.
What would change the record
- Parliamentary Budget Officer publishes an independent estimate of the 2030 emissions gap — 2025-11-26.
- CMHC's 2022-06 position has already been superseded by its 2025-06 vintage.
- CMHC's 2025-06 position has already been superseded by its 2026-09 vintage.
- ECCC's 2025 position has already been superseded by its 2026 vintage.
This page brings together the evidence, institutional disagreements and gaps behind a continuing question. Where the record supports an answer, it appears with its date, sources, limits, Brief and Receipt. New evidence can change that answer.
This page holds the current public record for this question. For a more specific question, see Work with Countability.
Work with Countability