INUVIK, Northwest Territories (Reuters) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is expected to call an election as early as next week, did not rule out the possibility the Canadian economy might have slipped into recession but said yesterday that if so it would only be in a technical sense.

Harper was speaking on the eve of the release of second quarter GDP data, which will show whether Canada has had negative growth for two successive quarters — the most popular technical definition of a recession.

Most analysts expect slightly positive second-quarter growth after the first quarter's annualized reading of -0.3 percent, but many say there is a risk it could be negative.

"People talk about a technical recession. Even if that's true, I don't think it's a real recession," Harper told a news conference in the Arctic town of Inuvik, without confirming whether growth did in fact come in negative for two quarters.

"Somebody said a recession is when people start losing their jobs, and when your neighbor loses his job. There are job losses, but overall employment is pretty stable," Harper said.

The economy remains strong and while employment numbers have softened they remained very high, he said.

Sensitive to the political ramifications if there is a recession, Harper said: "Look, I'm not trying to sugarcoat this. I said a year ago, and I said as we moved into the new year, that 2008 would be a year of significantly slower economic growth, because of the circumstances we have in the global economy and in the American economy."