According to Statistics Canada, Canadian industries operated at 79.7 percent of their production capacity in the third quarter, up slightly from 79.6 percent in the second quarter.
The capacity utilization rate in the manufacturing sector edged up 0.3 percentage points to 78.3 percent in the third quarter. The increase was driven by the strength of primary metal manufacturing (+2.2 percentage points) and metal product manufacturing (+1.3 percentage points).
Capacity utilization in the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction sector increased 0.9 percentage points to 76.7 percent in the third quarter. Following the slowdown in natural gas extraction due to the forest fires in the second quarter, increased activity was observed in oil and gas extraction (+2.1 percent).
Conversely, capacity utilization in the electric power generation, transmission and distribution industry declined 1.9 percentage points to 79.3 percent in the third quarter. According to Energy statistics, total electricity generation in Canada fell 11.6 percent year over year in August, attributable to drier conditions or droughts across a large area of the country.