New Tory finance critic maintains Canada is in recession after front bench shakeup

OTTAWA — The Conservatives have named a new critic to take on the Liberals’ handling of the economy — but not a new strategy, as party stalwart Michael Chong maintained Tuesday the country is in a recession despite data suggesting the economy started growing again.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has named Chong, an Ontario MP, as the new finance critic in a shuffle of what the party branded as its “affordability team.”

“My focus is on affordability, affordability, affordability, affordability,” Chong said in an interview.

He said he intends to bring the same approach to his new role as he did to his former position as foreign affairs critic. “I’m going to be focused on the evidence and clearly communicate that,” he said.

Chong rejected the assessment of economists who pointed to the latest GDP figures as evidence that critics — including the Conservatives — were too hasty to say the country had fallen into a recession.

Statistics Canada said Tuesday real GDP rose 0.5 per cent in April, following a pair of quarterly contractions.

“A recession has been often defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, and so on that definition, Canada is in a recession,” Chong said.

He added that “one month of anemic growth, of half a per cent, does not change the overall picture.”

The Conservatives have spent weeks arguing the country is in a “full-blown recession.” They released an AI-generated ad that made light of observers who claimed Canada was only “technically” in a recession. The Liberals have pointedly avoided using the word recession in the House of Commons.

“By most traditional measures, other than GDP, I don’t think anybody would have considered us to be in a true recession,” said BMO chief economist Doug Porter on Tuesday.

Chong said the bigger issue is that Canadians are having trouble paying their bills, and the government has done far too little to address that.

“They have failed to introduce competition reform in a number of sectors of the Canadian economy that would help reduce the price of everything from groceries to gas to housing,” he said.

Chong said the government has not introduced “serious tax reform” to encourage investment and said he’s very concerned about what he called an emergency of declining productivity.

The veteran MP was the party’s foreign affairs critic for the past six years. He replaces Alberta MP Jasraj Hallan, who has moved to the national revenue file. Ontario MP Eric Duncan takes over from Chong on the foreign affairs file.

Poilievre’s senior leadership team remains unchanged, including deputy leaders Melissa Lantsman and Tim Uppal, House leader Andrew Scheer and whip Chris Warkentin.

There are 84 critics in the 140-member Conservative caucus.

B.C. MP Aaron Gunn is taking over the ethics and government accountability critic role from Ontario MP Michael Barrett, who moves to veterans affairs.

The change comes as the House ethics committee prepares to discuss whether there should be a conflict-of-interest probe of Ottawa’s plan to work with the B.C. government to buy out unsold condos in that province.

Conservative MP John Brassard, who chairs the ethics committee, said in a Monday letter to Poilievre the decision about launching an investigation will be up to the committee’s majority. The Liberals hold five voting seats on the 10-member committee.

Alberta MP Shuv Majumdar is now the party’s critic for Canada-U.S. relations — an important file as the countries prepare to enter the formal review period for the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement on trade, better known as CUSMA, that begins Wednesday.

Majumdar was among a small group of Conservative MPs who travelled to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with Canadian oil sector representatives and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

A notable absence from Poilievre’s critic team is Ontario MP Jamil Jivani, who has travelled to D.C. twice on his own, including the April trip with Majumdar. Jivani counts U.S. Vice President JD Vance as a close personal friend, has met with President Donald Trump and is in contact with Greer and his office.

Ontario MP Shelby Kramp-Neuman, who had been the critic for Canada-U.S. trade, will now will be special adviser for Ontario.

Poilievre last shuffled the critic roles in May 2025 after the general election. At the time, he signalled that he planned to adjust those roles again in the fall, anticipating a government cabinet shuffle that never did materialize.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has not done a major shakeup of his team since his cabinet was appointed in May 2025.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 30, 2026.

— With files from Craig Lord

Sarah Ritchie and David Baxter, The Canadian Press