One of the subtle issues with recession analysis is defining when they occur. For the United States, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has managed to become the authoritative source for recession dating, whereas for other countries, the dating process is less clear. In Canada, the C.D. Howe Institute has created a Business Cycle Council which has a mandate to date recessions. The chart above shows the post-1990 history of real GDP growth and the recession dates as defined by that committee. There are two declared recessionary periods: March 1990 - April 1992, and