Fraser Institute News Release: Canada’s record of underperforming international peers pre-dates COVID
2024年8月7日 - 6:00PM
Over the last business cycle (2007 to 2019), and long before the
COVID-19 pandemic struck, Canada was already underperforming other
advanced countries on important investment, employment and
productivity measures that are key to higher living standards,
finds a new study published by the Fraser Institute, an
independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
“It may be tempting for policymakers to blame Canada’s poor
economic performance on the COVID pandemic and all the disruptions
it caused, but the truth is Canada has been underperforming its
international peers in important ways for many years,” said Jason
Clemens, executive vice president of the Fraser Institute.
The study, A Comparative Analysis of the Economic
Performance of Canada and Its OECD Competitors, 2007-2019,
finds that Canada performed poorly on a number of important
investment, employment and productivity indicators when compared to
other high-income developed countries in the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). For example:
- Canada ranked 20th out of 31 for
growth in GDP per person at 7.2 per cent. For context, the OECD
average was 11.5 per cent, and countries as varied as Poland (54.1
per cent), Ireland (43.3 per cent), Czech Republic (21.0 per cent),
the United States (12.7 per cent) and Australia (10.8 per cent) all
out-performed Canada.
- Canada had the second lowest level of
business investment (excluding residential construction) as a share
of the economy among the OECD countries. Canada’s 11.0 per cent of
GDP in 2019 was only slightly more than half the amount of
Switzerland (20.3 per cent), which ranked first.
- Canada’s growth in private
non-residential business investment as a share of the economy was
the third worst among the OECD countries, and whereas investment
(as a share of the economy) declined in Canada by 11.1 per cent, it
increased by 19.7 per cent in the U.S.
- Employment in Canada’s government
sector increased by 17.3 per cent, the fourth highest among the
OECD countries. By comparison, employment in the private
sector—necessary to finance the government sector—only grew by 13.3
per cent.
- Labour productivity, measured as GDP
per hour worked, increased by 10.3 per cent, which is lower than
the OECD average of 11.2 per cent.
“Canada’s relative underperformance, whether measured as growth
in living standards, attracting investment, or the performance of
the labour market, started more than a decade ago and is actually
worsening,” Clemens said.
MEDIA CONTACTS:Jason Clemens,
Executive Vice-PresidentFraser Institute
To arrange media interviews or for more information, please
contact:Drue MacPherson, 604-688-0221 ext.
721, drue.macpherson@fraserinstitute.org
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The Fraser Institute is an independent Canadian public policy
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