Being in recession is typically defined as negative gdp growth.

So to answer your question, being in recession does account for inflation.

I really liked how Cory Doctorow framed what Canada could be doing with respect to digital sovereignty in his book ("Enshittification"). Doctorow argues that if Canada repealed its anti-circumvention law (Bill C-11), Canadian companies could legally jailbreak American tech products (John Deere tractors, the Apple App Store, etc) and sell those fixes worldwide, turning the right to tinker into a massive export industry and a form of digital sovereignty.

One can dream.

Economic malaise is orthogonal to the technical definition of a recession, though it is often correlated. And conversely, economic growth isn't always correlated with positive feelings (eg. South Korea and Canada in the 2010s)

It doesn't hurt but it doesn't really help either.

According to a buddy of mine from my policy days, GAC has always known there were issues with how immigration was managed in Canada but their diplomatic posts tend to severely lack intel and law enforcement attaches unlike most other foreign services, which made background checking difficult. There was also a recognition internally that the kinds of immigrants Canada wanted would be poached via an O-1 anyhow, so there was a perverse incentive around how skilled immigration was managed. And add to that the fact that the provinces themselves also managed immigration to a certain degree. All that led to a bureaucratic breakdown.

Additionally, when even Canadian policymakers are actively targeting American finance, VC, and lobbying jobs (like my friend), it shows you that there are deeper, fundamental issues. Heck, Carney only came back to Canada because his door to 10 Downing Street was effectively shut due to BoJo.

That said, tariffs and trade barriers did help. Heck, I'm a Dem but even I argued that we needed to build trade and non-trade barriers to protect capex that was unlocked via industrial policy.