Canada’s Productivity Crisis Is a Structural Failure That Has Been Building for a Decade

A worker uses an angle grinder on a vessel under construction at a shipyard in North Vancouver on Oct.10, 2024. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

Commentary

Here is a sobering number: Canada’s real GDP per capita fell 2.0 percent over the five years from 2020 to 2024—the worst such decline since the Great Depression. Meanwhile, the United States grew by roughly 4.5 percent over the same period. We didn’t fall behind because of a pandemic or a commodity shock. We fell behind because of choices.