Canada’s economy has stagnated despite Ottawa’s spin

From the Fraser Institute

By Ben Eisen, Milagros Palacios and Lawrence Schembri

Canada’s inflation-adjusted per-person annual economic growth rate (0.7 per cent) is meaningfully worse than the G7 average (1.0 per cent) over this same period. The gap with the U.S. (1.2 per cent) is even larger. Only Italy performed worse than Canada.

Growth in gross domestic product (GDP), the total value of all goods and services produced in the economy annually, is one of the most frequently cited indicators of Canada’s economic performance. Journalists, politicians and analysts often compare various measures of Canada’s total GDP growth to other countries, or to Canada’s past performance, to assess the health of the economy and living standards. However, this statistic is misleading as a measure of living standards when population growth rates vary greatly across countries or over time.

Federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, for example, recently boasted that Canada had experienced the “strongest economic growth in the G7” in 2022. Although the Trudeau government often uses international comparisons on aggregate GDP growth as evidence of economic success, it’s not the first to do so. In 2015, then-prime minister Stephen Harper said Canada’s GDP growth was “head and shoulders above all our G7 partners over the long term.”

Unfortunately, such statements do more to obscure public understanding of Canada’s economic performance than enlighten it. In reality, aggregate GDP growth statistics are not driven by productivity improvements and do not reflect rising living standards. Instead, they’re primarily the result of differences in population and labour force growth. In other words, they aren’t primarily the result of Canadians becoming better at producing goods and services (i.e. productivity) and thus generating more income for their families. Instead, they primarily reflect the fact that there are simply more people working, which increases the total amount of goods and services produced but doesn’t necessarily translate into increased living standards.

Let’s look at the numbers. Canada’s annual average GDP growth (with no adjustment for population) from 2000 to 2023 was the second-highest in the G7 at 1.8 per cent, just behind the United States at 1.9 per cent. That sounds good, until you make a simple adjustment for population changes by comparing GDP per person. Then a completely different story emerges.

Canada’s inflation-adjusted per-person annual economic growth rate (0.7 per cent) is meaningfully worse than the G7 average (1.0 per cent) over this same period. The gap with the U.S. (1.2 per cent) is even larger. Only Italy performed worse than Canada.

Why the inversion of results from good to bad? Because Canada has had by far the fastest population growth rate in the G7, growing at an annualized rate of 1.1 per cent—more than twice the annual population growth rate of the G7 as a whole at 0.5 per cent. In aggregate, Canada’s population increased by 29.8 per cent during this time period compared to just 11.5 per cent in the entire G7.

Clearly, aggregate GDP growth is a poor tool for international comparisons. It’s also not a good way to assess changes in Canada’s performance over time because Canada’s rate of population growth has not been constant. Starting in 2016, sharply higher rates of immigration have led to a pronounced increase in population growth. This increase has effectively partially obscured historically weak economic growth per person over the same period.

Specifically, from 2015 to 2023, under the Trudeau government, inflation-adjusted per-person economic growth averaged just 0.3 per cent. For historical perspective, per-person economic growth was 0.8 per cent annually under Brian Mulroney, 2.4 per cent under Jean Chrétien and 2.0 per cent under Paul Martin.

Due to Canada’s sharp increase in population growth in recent years, aggregate GDP growth is a misleading indicator for comparing economic growth performance across countries or time periods. Canada is not leading the G7, or doing well in historical terms, when it comes to economic growth measures that make simple adjustments for our rapidly growing population. In reality, we’ve become a growth laggard and our living standards have largely stagnated for the better part of a decade.

Authors:

Ben Eisen

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute

Milagros Palacios

Director, Addington Centre for Measurement, Fraser Institute

Lawrence Schembri

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute

Related Topics:#BenEisen #EconomicGrowthRate #FraserInstitute #GDP #LawrenceSchembri #MilagrosPalacios #PerPersonGDP #PopulationExplosion

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Published on April 30, 2024

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Author: Franco Terrazzano

“Every penny collected from the GST will now go to cover interest charges on the Trudeau government’s credit card”

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the federal government to cut spending and balance the budget following today’s Parliamentary Budget Officer report forecasting higher deficits.

“Budget 2024 was bad, but the PBO report forecasts the Trudeau government will be running even bigger deficits,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “This PBO report should be a wake-up call for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: get a hold of your spending or interest charges will keep ballooning.”

The PBO projects a $46-billion deficit this year. Budget 2024 projected a $40-billion deficit.

“PBO’s projected budgetary deficits are $5.3 billion higher annually, on average, over 2023-24 to 2028-29,” according to the report.

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However, “in Budget 2024, the government announced $61.2 billion in new spending,” according to the PBO. “Since Budget 2021, the government has announced a total of $251.6 billion in new spending measures.”

Interest charges on the debt are expected to cost taxpayers $54 billion this year, according to Budget 2024.

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Canadian interest in electric vehicles falls for second year in a row: survey

Published on April 29, 2024

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From LifeSiteNews

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Canadians’ disinterest in electric vehicles comes as the Trudeau government recently mandated that all new light-duty vehicles in Canada are zero emission by 2035.

Research has revealed that Canadians are increasingly unwilling to purchase an electric vehicle (EV).

According to an April 22 survey from AutoTrader, Canadians remain skeptical of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s electric vehicle mandate and ongoing advertisement surrounding electric vehicles, as interest in owning one dropped for a second year in a row.

“Overall, while almost half of non-EV owners are open to buying an EV for their next vehicle, interest in EVs has declined for the second year in a row,” reported Tiffany Ding, director of insights and intelligence at AutoTrader.

In 2022, at least 68 percent of Canadians were interested in buying an electric vehicle. However, by 2023, the number declined to 56 percent. So far in 2024, there is even less interest, with only 46 percent saying they were open to purchasing one.

“AutoTrader data shows a direct correlation to gas prices and EV interest, and since gas prices have normalized from their peak in 2022, EV interest has also dropped,” a summary of the survey explained.

However, Canadians did show a slight increase of interest in hybrid vehicles, with 62 percent of those looking to purchase an electric vehicle saying they would look at a gas-electric hybrid, compared with 60 percent in 2023.

The survey also questioned Canadians regarding Trudeau’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which requires all new light-duty vehicles in Canada are zero-emission by 2035, essentially banning the sale of new gasoline/diesel-only powered cars.

The mandate comes despite warnings that it would cause massive chaos by threatening to collapse the nation’s power grids.

“Over 75 percent of respondents are aware of the federal government’s ZEV mandate, which requires all new light-duty vehicles sold in Canada to be zero-emission by 2035,” the survey found.

Canadians’ concerns in buying an electric vehicle include limited travel range/distance, inadequate availability of charging stations, higher purchasing costs, and concerns that they do not perform well in cold weather.

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Since taking office in 2015, Trudeau has continued to push a radical environmental agenda similar to the agendas being pushed the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” and the United Nations’ “Sustainable Development Goals.”

The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.

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