FRASERRESEARCH

BULLETIN
October 2017

Business Investment in Canada Falls Far Behindby Philip Cross
Other Industrialized Countries

SummaryThis bulletin provides an overview of business investment in Canada: why investment isimportant, its recent performance, and how it
compares with other industrialized countries.

Business investment is central to long-term

economic growth and rising living standards.
Investment is also an important determinantof the structure of industry growth in futureyears, since it provides the capital for firms togrow. Investment embodies new technological developments and innovations, committing
firms to expand in a specific direction whileproviding the tools for employees to work moreproductively.


There is a tendency to assume that the

weakness in business investment in Canada
is simply part of slow growth throughout theOECD following the financial crisis that be-fraserinstitute.org

gan in 2008. However, despite strength in theenergy sector before 2015, business investment
in Canada has lagged behind that in almost allother advanced market economies for which
there is comparable data.

Indeed, business investment in Canada has

been relatively low compared to other countries at least since 2000. It improved somewhat
between 2009 and 2014 when strength in ourenergy sector boosted our relative performance.
However, the underlying weakness of investment
in Canada became apparent again after oil prices
slumped, ending the boom in energy investment.

The persistent weakness of business invest-

ment in Canada has been aggravated by several
recent government policies including increased
tax rates on capital and mounting budget deficits and debt, both of which add to the uncertainty that entrepreneurs and investors feel
about the future.

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Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries
Introduction
One of the most common narratives about Canada’s economy centres on hefty investments overthe past decade in its energy sector, notably theoil sands. This narrative gives the impression thatbusiness investment, while disproportionately
concentrated in one sector, has been a driving
force in Canada’s economic growth. While it istrue that energy investment had risen, this narrow focus obscures the fact that business investment as a share of Canada’s GDP continues to be
at a rate that is among the lowest in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Even during the period of rapidly
increasing energy investment before the drop incommodity prices, Canada trailed other OECD
countries on measures of business investment.
After years of decline, the Bank of Canada foresees little rebound in business investment, which
it forecasts to rise by less than 1 percent in 2018and 2019 (Bank of Canada, 2017: 8). If weak business investment persists, it will be a major contributor to slow growth in Canada in the future.
This bulletin gives an overview of business
investment in Canada: why investment isimportant, its recent performance, and how
it compares with other OECD countries. It
reviews the broad trends since 2000, focusing
particularly on the post-2014 period when theenergy sector no longer compensated for thepersistent weakness in other industries. It also
briefly discusses factors weighing on business
investment in Canada, including recent government policies that have made the investment
climate less hospitable.

The role of investment in the economy
Business investment is central to long-term
economic growth and rising living standards.
For investments to be made, some current consumption must be sacrificed so that the funds

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can be spent on assets that will generate higher
incomes and ultimately living standards inthe future. In the words of Ricardo Caballero,“Investing means trading the present for the
future” (1999: 815). Dale Jorgensen and StevenLandefeld concluded that “Capital input is themost important source of economic growth in
the postwar period” (2006: 97). For Hyman Minsky, “Investment is the essential determinant of
the path of a capitalist economy: the government budget, the behavior of consumption, andthe path of money wages are secondary” (1986:
191). Conversely, a dearth of investment can befatal: the collapse of business investment inNorth America to below the rate of depreciation in the 1930s, implying an outright decline
in the capital stock, was a principal factor making the 1930s recession the “Great Depression.”
Investment is also an important determinantof the structure of industry growth in futureyears, since it provides the capital for firms togrow. For example, the investment Canada has
made in energy has been reflected in rapid output growth of energy products as well as thetransportation infrastructure needed to carrythese products to markets. Investment embodies new technological developments and innovations, committing firms to expand in a specific direction while providing the tools for
employees to work more productively.
Investment also plays an outsized role in thecyclical fluctuation of the economy between
periods of recession and growth. This large
impact reflects that investment is one of themost volatile components of aggregate demand
over the business cycle.
As important as investment is to an economy,
more investment does not always guarantee sustained income growth. The centrallyplanned economies dominated by the Soviet

FRASER RESEARCH BULLETIN 2

Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries
Figure 1: Business Invesment (Non-Residential) in Canada (billions 2007$)
250
Total business investment (non-residential )200

Billions of 2007$150
Non-residential structures
100
Machinery and equipment
50Intellectual property products
0

Sources: Statistics Canada, CANSIM Table 380-0064; calculations by author.

Union demonstrated that high levels of investment alone were insufficient to generate innovation and growth. That’s because the investments were not in the right industries due toa lack of informational guidance from market
prices and profits, and the suppression of theentrepreneurial spirit to act on this information. As noted by legendary business management guru Peter Drucker, “It is not how muchcapital is being invested—or else the Soviet
Union would have easily been the world’s foremost economy. What’s critical is the productivity of capital” (2017: 86). A Keynesian prescription of digging holes and then filling them backup is simply a wasted opportunity to boost
long-run productivity.

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The structure of business investment
in Canada
There are three components to businessfixed investment: non-residential structures,
machinery and equipment, and intellectual
property products. Structures include buildingssuch as offices, factories, and warehouses, andengineering works such as oil and gas facilities,
pipelines, hydroelectricity dams, and transmission wires. Machinery and equipment investments include computers, electronics, andindustrial machinery. These investments are
critical for boosting individual worker productivity, whereas structures tend to be linked tothe expansion of capacity, which helps raise an

FRASER RESEARCH BULLETIN 3

Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries
Figure 2: Business Investment (Non-Residential) in Canada, as Share of GDP
16%
Total business investment (non-residential )

14%
12%
10%

Non-residential structures8%
6%

Machinery and equipment

4%2%Intellectual property products

0%

Sources: Statistics Canada, CANSIM Table 380-0064; calculations by author.

industry’s output and productivity.1 Investment
in intellectual property mostly reflects spending on research and development, which tends
to fluctuate less over time.
Figure 1 displays total business investment
in Canada (adjusted for inflation in 2007 dollars) and its three main components from 2000
through to the most recent quarter of available
data in 2017. Total business investment increased
from $141.1 billion in 2000 up to $207.5 billion in2008 before dropping to $160.5 billion in 2009 asa result of the recession. It then began increasing in 2010, peaking at $235.8 billion in 2014
before dropping again in 2015 after the energy
price shock. As of the second quarter this year,

it currently stands at $194.2 billion—18 percent
lower than the quarterly peak in 2014.
Because of the energy boom, Canada saw asurge in the construction of non-residential structures after the 2009 recession. Thiswas dominated by energy projects as capacity
expanded in the oil sands and subsequently inthe network of pipelines needed to distribute
oil and gas, as well as utility generation. However, these gains were not matched by investment in machinery and equipment (figure 1).
Put differently, while there was a significant
surge in investments in non-residential structures from 2009 to the end of 2014, investments
in machinery and equipment did not increaseby the same proportion.

1

The larger importance of machinery and equipment to labour productivity is documented in Rao,
Someshwar, Jianmin Tang, and Weimin Wang (2003).

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Figure 2 displays Canada’s annual business
investment as a share of GDP from 2000 to

FRASER RESEARCH BULLETIN 4

Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries
Table 1: Business Investment (Non-Residential) as a Share of GDP
2000-2008 avg.

2009-2014 avg.

2015-2017 avg.

Percent

Rank of 17

Percent

Rank of 17

Percent

Rank of 17

Australia

14.8%

6

18.9%

2

15.7%

3

Belgium

14.8%

5

14.8%

4

15.6%

4

Canada

11.3%

15

12.6%

8

10.9%

16

Denmark

12.3%

10

11.3%

14

12.1%

11

Finland

13.4%

8

12.0%

12

11.8%

15

France

12.3%

11

12.6%

9

13.3%

9

Germany

12.2%

13

12.0%

11

12.1%

12

Iceland

15.1%

4

8.5%

17

13.6%

7

Japan

15.3%

3

14.4%

5

15.5%

5

Korea

22.2%

1

21.6%

1

21.3%

1

Netherlands

11.5%

14

11.6%

13

12.4%

10

New Zealand

10.9%

16

10.6%

15

11.8%

14

Norway

12.2%

12

13.6%

7

12.0%

13

Sweden

14.0%

7

14.4%

6

15.0%

6

Switzerland

17.5%

2

17.3%

3

18.2%

2

United Kingdom

9.4%

17

8.9%

16

9.4%

17

United States

12.4%

9

12.3%

10

13.3%

8

Notes:(1) Comparable data is not available for OECD countries not listed here.
(2) 2016 is preliminary data and 2017 is projected by OECD.
Sources: OECD Economic Outlook, June 2017; calculations by author.

2016. Since 2000, business investment has average about 12 percent, even with the boom inenergy investment that lifted spending on structures over much of this period. By 2007, investment in structures had surpassed investment
in machinery and equipment in Canada. This
source of strength in energy investment was
partly offset by persistent weakness in spending on productivity-enhancing machinery andequipment, which as a share of GDP has fallen

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for most of the past two decades. Canada’s reliance on structures is unusual; more typical is
the US, where investment in machinery andequipment was twice as high as it was on structures.
The weakness in investment in machinery andequipment over the past decade has been concentrated in three industries. Finance, mostly
banks, has posted the largest decline, fromFRASER RESEARCH BULLETIN 5

Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries
Figure 3: Total Resource Investment(Public and Private) in Canada as a Shareof GDP

tures remain much higher at $11.2 billion in2017); it therefore urgently searched for cuts in
its spending on machinery and equipment tocounter its falling cash flow.

6%
5%
4%
3%
2%
1%
0%

Sources: OECD.Stat; calculations by author.

$23.2 billion in 2006 to $4.3 billion in 2017 (allindustry-level data are in current dollars, notadjusted for inflation).2 The drop was about
equally spread between Quebec and Ontario.
Meanwhile, manufacturers, led by firms in
Ontario, have cut machinery and equipment
outlays from $14.4 billion in the years before
the recession to $11.8 billion. Finally, the mining
industry quickly slashed spending on machinery and equipment from $7.3 billion when oil
prices began to dive in 2014 to just $0.9 billion
by 2017. The sudden and precipitous drop in
machinery and equipment investment reflects
this industry’s commitment to finishing megaprojects nearing completion (outlays for struc2

All investment data in this paragraph are from Statistics Canada, Cansim Table 029-0045. Industry dataon investment are only available in current dollars.

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Business investment in Canada
compared with that in other OECD
countries
How does business investment performancein Canada measure up against other advanced
economies? Table 1 compares Canada’s business investment as a share of GDP over threetime periods to 17 other OECD countries forwhich there is comparable data. In the first
period, from 2000 to 2008, Canada ranked
15th overall with business investment averaging 11.3 percent of GDP. Canada’s average business investment rate rose to 12.6 percent in
the subsequent 2009 to 2014 period, improving
the country’s ranking to 8th, partly as a result of
the energy boom and the accompanying rise inresource-related investments. However, business investment is projected to fall to 10.9 percent, on average, from 2015 to 2017, and Canada’s ranking is set to fall to 16th, lower thanits pre-energy boom position. While Canada
lagged internationally on business investment
before the recession and made some progressin the immediate years following it, the country
has slid back following the energy price shock.
In other words, Canada’s long-standing problem with weak business investment was partially masked by improved performance due toa robust energy sector (see figure 3, which displays data on total resource investment data
(public and private) in Canada over time).
Despite large investments in the energy sector over the years, Canada still devotes lessof its GDP to business investment than mostmajor OECD countries. Even after years of slow

FRASER RESEARCH BULLETIN 6

Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries
Figure 4: Non-Residential Business Investment as Share of GDP in OECD Countries,
2015-2017 Average
Korea

21.3%

Switzerland

18.2%

Australia

15.7%

Belgium

15.6%

Japan

15.5%

Sweden15.0%

Iceland

13.6%

United States

13.3%

France13.3%

Netherlands

12.4%

Denmark

12.1%

Germany

12.1%

Norway12.0%

New Zealand

11.8%

Finland

11.8%

Canada10.9%

United Kingdom

9.4%
0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

Notes:(1) Comparable data is not available for OECD countries not listed here.
(2) 2016 is preliminary data and 2017 is projected by OECD.
Sources: OECD Economic Outlook, June 2017; calculations by author.

growth and turmoil in their financial markets,
most developed countries still invest markedly more of their GDP than Canada’s 10.9 percent (see figure 4). South Korea invests nearly
twice as much as Canada, while most European
countries and the US invest between 12 percent and 15 percent. Only the United Kingdom
invests less, partly reflecting the winding downof investments in North Sea oil and the withering away of its industrial base (see Driver andTemple, 2013).

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The persistent weakness of business investment, especially for machinery and equipment,
means that Canadian workers have one of thelowest amounts of capital equipment to help
them do their jobs productively. Table 2 compares total business investment per worker in
the OECD (using Purchasing Power Parity rates
to convert each national currency into 2010 US
dollars) over the same three time periods. It
shows Canada consistently ranks poorly rela-

FRASER RESEARCH BULLETIN 7

Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries
Table 2: Business Investment (Non-Residential) per Worker, $US 2010
2000-2008 avg.
$US 2010

2009-2014 avg.

2015-2017 avg.

Rank of 17$US 2010

Rank of 17$US 2010

Rank of 17

Australia

11,6795

15,955

2

13,913

6

Belgium

13,786

3

14,214

4

15,3592

Canada8,911

15

10,263

11

9,290

15

Denmark

10,39812

10,08814

11,037

11

Finland

10,885

8

10,15913

10,182

14

France10,697

9

11,323812,434

8

Germany

10,265

13

10,22712

10,437

13

Iceland

10,614

10

6,409

17

10,607

12

Japan

10,555

11

10,324

10

11,43510

Korea

11,647

6

13,817

5

14,5384Netherlands

10,11714

10,397

9

11,558

9

New Zealand

6,458

17

6,744

16

7,599

16

Norway13,873

2

15,524

3

14,122

5

Sweden11,273

7

12,371

7

13,566

7

Switzerland

15,934

1

16,4771

17,423

1

United Kingdom

7,047

16

6,906

15

7,478

17

United States

12,244

4

13,367

6

14,8893

Notes:(1) Comparable data is not available for OECD countries not listed here.
(2) 2016 is preliminary data and 2017 is projected by OECD.
Sources: OECD Economic Outlook, June 2017; calculations by author.

tive to its OECD competitors, including energy
dependent countries such as Australia and Norway, on providing its workers comparable levels of investment. In the latest period, 20152017, Canadian workers are projected to haveless than US$10,000 of capital to do their jobs
(figure 5). This is far below the US$14,000 each
American worker possesses and the averageof about US$12,000 in most EU countries (withthe UK being a notable exception at less than
US$8,000). It is also greatly below the averagefraserinstitute.org

for both Australians and Norwegians, whichhovers close to US$14,000.
The preponderance of investment in our
resource sector also reflects that Canada
invests relatively little in both its services andmanufacturing sectors. While it is not surprising that Canada invests less in manufacturing
than do industrial powerhouses such as Germany, it is shocking that Canada invests lessof its GDP in services and about the same in

FRASER RESEARCH BULLETIN 8

Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries
Figure 5: Non-Residential Business Investment per Worker in OECD Countries,
2015-2017 Average (in $US 2010)
Switzerland

17,423

Belgium

15,359

United States

14,889Korea

14,538

Norway14,122Australia

13,913Sweden13,566

France12,434

Netherlands

11,558

Japan

11,435

Denmark

11,037

Iceland

10,607

Germany

10,437

Finland

10,182

Canada9,290

New Zealand

7,599

United Kingdom

7,478
0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,00012,00014,00016,00018,00020,000

US$ 2010

Notes:(1) Comparable data is not available for OECD countries not listed here.
(2) 2016 is preliminary data and 2017 is projected by OECD.
Sources: OECD Economic Outlook, June 2017; calculations by author.

manufacturing as a poor nation such as Greece(figure 6). In fact, Canada invests less of its GDP
in services (6.6 percent) than any of the otherOECD countries (Australia is the next lowest at
8.7 percent). Note that the data in figure 6, likethe data in figure 3, include both private andpublic investment, since the OECD does notdistinguish between the two sectors.

Factors weighing on business
investment in Canada
Business investment has lagged throughout
the current recovery compared with previ-

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ous cycles. The Bank of Canada noted that“the recovery in business investment is anticipated to remain below what would normally be
expected based on historical experience” (Bankof Canada, 2017: 15). Weak investment reflectsthat the stimulus from central banks has failed
to spark growth in the overall economy giving firms little means and few incentives toinvest. Record low interest rates and improved
balance sheets should have made investment
more attractive but has not done so. In particular, very high rates of capacity utilization havenot elicited more manufacturing investment,
notably in Ontario where a loss of competitive-

FRASER RESEARCH BULLETIN 9

Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries
Figure 6: Total (Public and Private) Services and Manufacturing Investment as Shareof GDP in OECD Countries, 2010-2015 Average
Czech Republic
SwedenBelgium
Estonia
Austria
FranceSlovak Republic
Germany
Finland
Ireland
Hungary
Denmark
United Kingdom
Netherlands
United States
GreeceAustralia

Services

Canada
0%

5%

10%

15%

Manufacturing
20%

25%

Notes:(1) Total investment includes investment by governments.
(2) Italy is excluded due to a lack of industry level data for 2015.
(3) Services includes industries other than: agriculture, forestry and fishing; mining and quarrying; manufacturing; public
administration and defence, compulsory social security; education; human health and social work activities.
Sources: OECD National Accounts at a Glance; OECD.Stat; calculations by author.

ness plays a role. The Bank of Canada also cites
structural factors such as slower labour force
growth and uncertainty over US economic policy for low business investment levels. Instead,whenever business firms in North America needto expand output, they have done so by boosting labour and not capital inputs, as reflected in
weak productivity growth.
While the macroeconomic determinants ofbusiness investment are complex and not veryfraserinstitute.org

well understood,3 some broad parameters
3

While well-developed theories of consumption,
housing, and international trade exist, business
investment has always been somewhat of a blackbox for economists, partly because so few have attempted to explain and test their theories beyond
basic tenets such as the importance of the after tax
rate of return on investments and the role of capacity utilization (concerning whether firms do not havethe capacity to raise output or have excess capacity).
For recent evidence on how increased uncertainty

FRASER RESEARCH BULLETIN 10

Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries

Large government deficits and debts areanother factor that depresses business investment. They do so by creating uncertainty about
the future among entrepreneurs and investors who expect the run up in government debt
to eventually lead to higher taxes. Moreover, a
recent study for the National Bureau of Economic Research found in the US “robust evidence of ‘crowding out,’ a tendency for higher
levels of government debt to reduce the levelof corporate borrowing” (Dwyer, 2017). Thisis a significant finding since the US has much
deeper and more diversified capital markets
than in Canada. Rising government borrowing byfederal and provincial governments may have aneven greater crowding out effect in Canada’s thinabout economic policies (i.e., taxes, government
spending, regulations, and monetary policy) adversely affects investment, see Baker, Bloom, andDavis (2016, March 10).

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Figure 7: Canada’s Marginal Effective Tax
Rate on Capital Investment, 2012-2015
20.5
20.0

20.0
19.5
19.0

Percent

are known to affect why business investment
is high in some countries and low in others.
Clearly the rate of return on investments is an
important variable. So the rate at which capital is taxed is important. In terms of taxes on
corporate income, Canada took some important steps starting in the 1990s to improve its
competitiveness by lowering corporate income
taxes (especially while the US maintained oneof the highest corporate tax rates in the world,
although its effective tax rate was lower thanits punishing statutory rate of 35 percent).
However, recently the overall tax rate on capital has started to creep up again in Canada. The
marginal effective tax rate on capital (whichmeasures all taxes on capital, not just corporate
income taxes) rose from 17.5 percent in 2012 to
20.0 percent in 2015 (figure 7). The higher tax
rates on capital continued after profits began tofall precipitously after mid-2014.

18.8

19.0

2013

2014

18.5
18.0
17.5

17.5

17.0
16.5
16.0
2012

2015

Source: Bazel and Mintz (2016).

capital markets if firms do not have ready accessto US capital markets.
As noted, the reluctance to invest more is especially surprising for manufacturing, wherehigh capacity utilization and a lower dollar
should have stimulated investment. There is
an important regional dimension to the weakness in manufacturing investment, with persistent slack in Ontario where industry faces ahost of competitive challenges resulting fromhigh costs imposed by the provincial government for labour, electricity, and regulation (seeCross, 2017). The giant auto parts maker Magnaprovided a visible example of the real-life effectof these costs. In July 2017 Magna testified at
a government hearing on the proposed overhaul of labour legislation that the high cost ofoperating in Ontario had led it to reconsider

FRASER RESEARCH BULLETIN 11

future investments and production in the province, especially as neighboring states in the US
are pursuing policies to attract investment. If
Keynes was right and animal spirits are important to investment, it is important to understand that businesses are quite dispirited in
Ontario with the lowest business confidence inthe country.

Figure 8: Net Lending by CanadianCorporations, Billions (Nominal)

Falling corporate profits have been another factor constraining business investment in recent
years. While the popular image is that corporations are sitting on large profits, the reality is that profitability has never returned to its
pre-recession peak in 2008 and more recently
substantial declines were posted after the oil
price crash. According to data on net profits from Statistics Canada’s National Accounts,
profits peaked at $294.2 billion (at annual rates)in the second quarter of 2008. Profits hoveredaround $280 billion in 2011 and again in 2014,
but then plunged by one-third to $190.5 billion
in the second quarter of 2016. Moreover, firms
spent what little profit they made in 2015 and2016, unable to cut investment spending as fast
as incomes fell. Corporations became net borrowers in 2015 (see figure 8) to sustain even the
low level of investments in those years because
they could not cut investment spending as fast
as profits were falling. This reality is sharply atodds with the false picture of firms sitting onlarge piles of “dead money” waiting to be spent.
The fact that firms had to borrow funds to sustain investment also means they were in directcompetition with governments to raise funds infinancial markets, increasing the importance of
crowding out in Canada.

Billions (nominal)

Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries

More broadly, the shrinking profitability ofinvestments in Canada, especially in the oil andgas sector, appears to be discouraging foreign
investment in Canada. Most of the large foreign-controlled multinationals operating in thefraserinstitute.org

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
-10

Source: Statistics Canada, CANSIM Table 380-0076.

oil sands have sold their interests to Canadiancompanies. More recently, Malaysia’s Petronasannounced it would not pursue a $36 billion
investment in liquefied natural gas in BC. The
withdrawal of investments in Canada by foreigncompanies removes an important source offunding and signals fewer new energy projects
will be undertaken in the future.
However, not all the reasons for weak business
investment are readily understood. As noted at
the start of this section, economists have relatively few theories of the behaviour of investment and this applies to Canada. For example,
it is hard to explain why investment in Canada’s
finance industry has been very weak in recent
years despite a sterling international reputation
and a proliferation of technological innovation.

FRASER RESEARCH BULLETIN 12

Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries
Conclusion
Anemic business investment has contributed
to the weak recovery of Canada’s economy after
2009. More importantly, low levels of investment inhibit productivity growth, one of the key
determinants of living standards in the longrun. Investment has been weak in most of theOECD. Nevertheless, Canada’s investment rateand its investment per worker were both among
the lowest in the OECD despite the pre-2015
boom in the energy sector.
Is Canada investing productively, to answer
Peter Drucker’s challenge? It was appropriate toexpand capacity in the energy sector during adecade of high oil prices. But Canada has failed
to invest in productivity enhancing machineryand equipment for decades. Meanwhile, the oil
price crash in 2015 did lead to a sharp cutback ininvestment in the oil sector, especially from foreign-owned firms. However, there was no sign ofan accompanying shift in investment into manufacturing and services, which should have picked
up some of this slack, even in industries such as
finance where profitability is high, or manufacturing where capacity use is elevated.

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Business Investment in Canada Behind Other Countries
Philip Cross worked for 36 years at
Statistics Canada, the last few as its
Chief Economic Analyst. He wrote
Statistics Canada’s monthly assessment of the economy for years, aswell as many feature articles for the
Canadian Economic Observer. Afterleaving Statistics Canada, he has
worked as a contract researcher for avariety of organizations. He has been
widely quoted over the years, andnow writes a bi-weekly column for
the National Post and other papers.

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Wang (2003). Canada’s Recent Productivity
Record and Capital Accumulation (July).
Industry Canada.
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Non-Residential Tangible Assets, byNorth American Industry Classification
System (NAICS), Canada, Provinces andTerritories. Government of Canada.
<http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/
a26?lang=eng&id=290045>, as of Oct. 4, 2017.
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gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&id=3800064>, asof October 5, 2017.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Charles
Lammam, Milagros Palacios, and Hugh
MacIntyre of the Fraser Institute for theirresearch assistance, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their comments, suggestions, and insights. Any remaining errors
or oversights are the sole responsibility of
the author. As the researcher has worked
independently, the views and conclusions
expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the Board of Directors of
the Fraser Institute, the staff, or supporters.

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