Canada can’t trade its way back to prosperity
The Economist even floated Canadian membership in the European Union.
The premise is appealing, but mistakes Canada’s problem. No trading partner can compensate for an economy that has spent years producing too little from each hour of work.
Workers produce more with better tools, and better tools come from investment, the machinery, software and infrastructure that let each worker produce more. Canadian firms have invested less than their American rivals for years.
Between 2013 and 2023, capital spending per worker grew about 28 per cent in the United States and roughly 7 per cent in Canada, and investment in the resource industries fell about 15 per cent. Business makes that investment. Government sets the climate in which firms decide.
Much of the gap between American and European incomes is a choice. Europeans take longer holidays, shorter weeks, earlier retirements. They traded income for time.
American output per person sits near US$85,000 and the European Union near US$43,000. Canada, around US$54,000.
By OECD estimates, an hour of Canadian work produced about US$75 of value in 2023, against US$89 in France and US$97 in the United States. Canada reaches European income only by working longer hours, and still produces less value per hour.
https://www.todayville.com/canada-cant-trade-its-way-back-to-prosperity/
Through extensive Public-Private Partnership (PPP) frameworks Canada builds infrastructure. Either the private sector continues operating the infrastructure after completion and gets paid in accordance with performance. Or alternately government operates the completed infrastructure.
The workforce needs be better familiarised yet and aquire aptitude preferably at an early age to operate infrastructure. Science demonstrations in elementary class. Full fledged hands-on experience on their own space starting by 7th grade. Comprehensive shop and laboratory science courses to the end of 12th grade. Supplemented with maths, English composition, world history, geography. Efficient early learning allowing youths to learn-on-job complex work environments straight out of secondary school.