Canada has had 0.7% per capita GDP growth since 2015. Which puts us 2nd last only to Luxembourg in all 38 countries of the OECD.
We elected a person who said oil needs to stay in the ground in their book, who wants to grow population at more than 450k a year (1% cap, plus births) to prop up GDP despite the current high unemployment and the severe housing shortage, and who wants to join Germany and the UK in spinning up solar and wind which clearly did not go well for either of them.
https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/let-ed-run-it
Through that lens I could see how they could be fearful of Canada’s demise, especially if we have another 10 years like the last. Gross government debt also somehow doubled since 2015 as well to achieve this lethargic growth, before subtracting pensions to create the net debt figure the government generally uses.
Then theres yesterdays Alberta separation fear with bill 54, and the fact Alberta contributes significantly more to Ottawa than any other province. As tariffs have a chance to wipe out manufacturing and you’ll be asking Alberta to contribute even more to fund unemployed auto workers and the like, after some provinces block Alberta’s access to new trade routes, I could see some clear catalyst for separation. Which would put Canada in a deeply negative current account balance and would be the end of Canada as we know it now.
Percap is probably not the best metric here, firstly, you’ve had massive immigration, your growth rate is around 3x that of the US.
Secondly, that windoe is also centered around covid.
Well we have a negative productivity growth as well at the moment. Hence the BoC ringing the alarm bells. That makes it harder to pay our growing debt load even with spreading it out to more people.
wants to join Germany and the UK in spinning up solar and wind which clearly did not go well for either of them
German here, works pretty well actually.
You’re also burning lignite coal now, which you take from Africa who is now having blackouts. But it went pretty poorly overall phasing out nuclear for renewables.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany
Key to Germany’s energy policies and politics is the Energiewende, meaning “energy turnaround” or “energy transformation”. The policy includes nuclear phaseout (completed in 2023) and progressive replacement of fossil fuels by renewables. However, contrary to plan, the nuclear electricity production lost in Germany’s phase-out was primarily replaced with coal electricity production and electricity importing. One study found that the nuclear phase-out caused $12 billion in social costs per year, primarily due to increases in mortality due to exposure to pollution from fossil fuels.