Canada's economy grew at an annualized rate of 6.1 per cent in the first quarter, the largest quarterly increase in more than a decade.
Statistics Canada said Canada's gross domestic product increased by 1.5 per cent in 2010's first quarter, over the final quarter of last year.
The strong numbers for Canada's GDP surpassed even the most rosy of estimates from economists.
Canada's economy grew at a rate that doubled the United States' first quarter rate of 3.0 per cent.
March's numbers improved 0.6 per cent of February's, giving the economy a strong boost going into the second quarter.
The GDP's growth in the first quarter is a strong indicator Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney will announce an interest rate hike on Tuesday.
"This really have pulled a lot of economist over to the side that he will be raising interest rates," BNN's Michael Kane said of the numbers on CTV News Channel. "What we are really waiting for is to see the rate at which the interest rate goes up."
The C.D. Howe Institute has recommended a hike of 0.5 per cent.
"It would take some fancy footwork for the Bank of Canada to pass on hiking rates tomorrow after the Canadian economy just doubled the U.S. quarter-one growth pace," Scotiabank economists Derek Holt and Karen Cordes Woods wrote in a note. "This is the strongest growth pace witnessed since 1999 and it is the latest evidence of how the Canadian economy and Canadian markets are outperforming much of the rest of the industrialized world."
A rate hike would be the first in three years in Canada.
Stats Canada credited consumer spending and the housing and manufacturing sectors for the strong first quarter numbers.
