Is Harper driving us back into recession?

Well the numbers for February are out and they show that the Canadian economy shrank in the month of February. Given that Harper has been crowing about how good the economy is because of his stewardship, this would be a sign that that stewardship isn't as good as Harper has been leading us to believe.

Now I'm sure the Con-bots will be out in force either a) denying that the numbers are real or b) blaming the election and the "evul coalishun" for the down turn (despite the fact that the election wasn't called until a month later). More than likely they're hoping that the electorate is distracted by the royal wedding and that it won't be noticed.

Naturally there needs to be several more months of contraction for it to be considered a recession, but it doesn't look good on the Tories given it's what they've been running on. It also shows how little they know about the economy as it's the second time since they've been in government that there's been a downturn and the Harper government has been blindsided by it.

The question at this point is has this information come too late to have an effect on the election and if not will it negatively affect the Harper Tories? We'll find out in a few days.