Canada's Lagging Productivity and Potential Reasons

Canada’s productivity is declining and has been lagging for some time. A country’s productivity is an economic measure that boils down to how much stuff is produced by each working person. And according to our guest, Scotiabank’s Chief Economist Jean-François Perrault, it’s the most important economic variable we have. And declining productivity can have big implications for everyday Canadians. This episode, we have a crash course on productivity. We'll learn exactly what it is, how it’s calculated, where Canada stands and why finding a solution to declining productivity is so difficult.   

Key moments this episode: 

1:33 — The basic definition of what productivity is 

2:09 — How is it measured? (And why is it so complex?) 

4:19 — Why productivity is “the most important economic variable we have”  

5:59 — Why increasing productivity equates to increasing standard of living 

7:00 — How Canada’s productivity has looked historically 

8:21 — The mystery behind why Canada lags behind in productivity 

12:15 — What the long-term impact of declining productivity could be on Canadians 

14:08 — The big question: how do you solve the problem when you aren’t sure what the cause is? 

18:03 — Why productivity is the “number one public policy issue” in Canada