From Chronic to Acute: Canada’s Investment Crisis

Once in place, it equips workers to raise their output: the buildings where people work, the infrastructure that moves intermediate and final products and services to market, the tools workers use in their jobs and the intellectual property that drives innovation. [...] The labour force in the second quarter of 2020 is the average of the first- and third-quarter figures, to reduce the distortion of the COVID-19 crisis in the spring. [...] The difference shrank after the middle of the 2010s, however, as Canada’s per-available-worker investment in structures stagnated, while the counterpart US measure rebounded – reflecting in large degree the relatively robust performance of the US energy sector at a time when Canada’s faced policy-related obstacles. [...] Business investment per available worker in the United States exceeded that in Canada by a widening margin through the 1990s; although the gap narrowed in the 2000s, it has widened dramatically in the past half-decade. [...] We show our measure of investment in Canada per dollar of its equivalent in the United States, in total and in each investment category, in Figure 4. Canada’s relatively robust rate of investment in structures stands out in this figure, with Canadian workers benefiting from more additions of this type of capital throughout the period.