Canada's Great Economic Divide, In One Chart
Canada no longer knows how to sell anything to the world except oil and gas.
Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but if things keep going the way they are, it won't be for long.
StatsCan’s latest numbers on Canada’s trade balance, released Thursday, look positive on the face of it: Exports and imports both grew, and Canada’s trade deficit with the world shrank by more than half, to $435 million.
But dig a little deeper into the data, and what you see is a story of two different export sectors. As BMO chief economist Doug Porter put it in a client note Friday morning, “there is energy (doing just fine) and there is everything else (doing anything but fine).”
While energy exports have seen a $63.6-billion surplus for the past 12 months, everything else has seen a $72.9-billion deficit.
Check out this chart of Canada's trade balance for energy (blue) and everything else (red).
The gap between energy and everything else is translating into a regional divide in Canada — between the booming, oil-reliant West and the plodding economy of the rest of the country.
“The rapid pace of oilsands development is creating economic risks and regional disparities that need to be addressed,” the left-leaning Pembina Institute said in a report released this week.
The report said the “overwhelming majority” of economic benefits from the oilsands boom “are limited to Alberta. Other provinces will benefit less: even the United States would gain more employment opportunities from the oilsands than the rest of Canada if oilsands development goes ahead as projected.”
Canada's Great Economic Divide, In One Chart
