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Albertans’ Economic Hardship Reflects Provincial Policy Choices, not “Attacks” by the Rest of Canada
In this commentary, originally published in the Toronto Star, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford rebuts claims that the living standards of Albertans have been harmed by “attacks” on the province’s oil industry (as claimed by Conservative leaders Andrew Scheer and Pierre Poilievre). In fact, the province’s oil output (and the profits of the oil industry) have never been higher.
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New Data Confirms Canada-U.S. Trade is Balanced and Mutually Beneficial
The U.S, Census Bureau has released year-end 2024 data on America’s bilateral trade flows in goods and services. This data reconfirms that the U.S trade deficit is neither new, nor an “emergency” (as Trump has claimed in order to invoke special emergency powers to set tariffs). And it reconfirms that the U.S. trade relationship with Canada is uniquely balanced, and beneficial to the U.S.
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Per Capita GDP is a Deeply Flawed Measure of Economic Performance and Living Standards
During the recent federal election, some business and political commentators used data regarding Canada’s relative performance in growing its “GDP per capita” to argue that Canadians have experienced a “lost decade” of stagnation and falling living standards. In this two-part analysis that first appeared here and here in Policy Options magazine (published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy), Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford explains how GDP per capita is calculated – and why it is not appropriate for measuring human well-being or economic progress.