While Yukoners should only expect minimal economic growth for 2013, the Bank of Montreal's chief economist isn't concerned over the medium-term.

Douglas Porter gave the keynote address Tuesday evening at the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce's annual general meeting held at the Yukon Convention Centre.

Economic Development Minister Currie Dixon joked upon introducing Porter that there would be one commodity the economist wouldn't touch on during his speech – surprising, considering recent events in Dawson which caused the price of human toe to "spike dramatically.”

(A drinker deliberately swallowed the digit in his sourtoe cocktail last Saturday night. See story, p. 4.)

But Porter was there to talk business, not sourtoes.

The territory's economy is tightly connected to the future of the commodity supercycle, he noted.

The big question is whether that supercycle is over.

China's declining growth, America's continued economic recovery and the European recession have brought this question front and centre.

"Of course, it really jumped into the headlines back in April, when gold prices fell by more than $100 an ounce in a single day,” Porter said.

"We've seen some recovery since that point; we got above $1,400 an ounce but of course still, well, well down from the peaks we reached last year.”

Remaining positive, Porter noted that while prices have dropped for the most part, they're still higher than their five-year average.

A key indicator to watch is Chinese investor production, he said.

Usually double-digit growth in Chinese investor production will lead to noticeable increases in commodity prices, Porter's audience heard.

Though we haven't seen that recently, BMO is confident China is stabilizing.

The bank is expecting investor production to grow by 90 per cent over the next year.

Over the short term, Porter said, the Yukon's economic growth is "clouded” by recent downturns in the local mining sector.

"The Yukon economy, compared to the rest of Canada, no surprise here, is incredibly levered to the mining sector,” he said.

"Public administration makes up a much bigger share of the economy, so that does act as some balance or a stabilizer for the economy, but the mining sector compared to the rest of the country is much, much larger, and because of that cooling-off of both mining prices and mining activity, that will act naturally as a big brake on the Yukon economy at least over the next 18 months or so,” he said.

But he reminded the crowd of gathered business people that this will mark the first time since 2005 that the territory has not experienced a higher rate of economic growth than the rest of Canada.

"This territory has just gone through a tremendous period where it has far outpaced the rest of the country,” the chief economist said.

"I think the most impactful example of that was back in 2009, when the rest of the country was shrinking by two to three per cent. There was almost eight-per-cent growth in Yukon,” he said.

He added that he tends to be bullish on commodity prices looking forward.

He expects the Yukon will return to seeing better growth than the rest of the country after 2015.

Murray Arsenault, the deputy minister of Economic Development, spoke earlier in the evening.

He also said the territory will witness slower growth in 2013 than last year, but he's expecting 2014 to be stronger.

"The sky is not falling, and the fundamentals the Yukon's economy is built on remain strong,” Arsenault said.

"Global demand for our minerals is still solid and Yukon is still a safe frontier for investing in resource development.”