Business
GDP growth at a standstill in Canada, oil and gas sector one major bright spot – Conference Board of Canada
Article submitted by the Conference Board of Canada
Muted Outlook for Canadian Economy
Consumer Spending Holding Strong Despite Confidence Being Weak
Despite the progress that has been made, inflation is still weighing down Canada’s economy according to new research from The Conference Board of Canada. In keeping with its previous forecast, real GDP growth will be at a virtual standstill for the rest 2023. For the year as a whole that means a 0.9 per cent gain, followed by only a modest 1.4 per cent improvement in 2024.
“Concerns about the U.S. financial system are unlikely to be mirrored in Canada given our country’s more concentrated banking system,” stated Ted Mallett, Director, Economic Forecasting at The Conference Board of Canada. “The indirect effects will be muted, and business investment was already expected to be weak in Canada so there is relatively little business lending to pull back.”
The global economy has slowed sharply over the past year as major central banks have increased interest rates, but despite the weak near-term growth anticipation, the chances of a severe global recession have receded. Inflation remains a threat, but two key developments provide reason for optimism. The first is the mild winter in Europe eased concerns of an energy crunch, with natural gas prices now lower than before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The second is China’s removal of the zero-COVID policy, which saw their economy open at a much faster pace than anticipated.
The U.S. economy continues to defy expectations, with an expansion of 2.7 per cent in the final quarter of last year. Several factors should ensure that the coming slowdown in economic growth won’t be as severe as past slumps in economic activity. The major reason behind this view is the excess savings that households in America built up during the pandemic when the opportunity to spend was severely limited.
A slower U.S. economy will weigh on Canada’s trade results in the coming months, but the exports sector will still see a good showing in 2023, according to The Conference Board of Canada. Supply chain disturbances, which significantly restrained activity for many export sectors last year, have shown signs of easing over the past several months. A weak domestic economy, the depreciation of the loonie, and a steep decline in machinery and equipment investment will lead to muted activity for total real imports this year.
The oil and gas sector is a major bright spot in Canada thanks to strong corporate profits and ongoing projects in Western Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Canada’s labour market has seen an impressive start to 2023, according to The Conference Board of Canada, which is being fuelled by an uptick in population growth. International migration to Canada has risen sharply in recent quarters, driven by record immigration targets and increased admissions of non-permanent residents, including temporary foreign workers.
Higher mortgage rates have slowed residential demand and unsurprisingly, the resale market has corrected with sales and prices decreasing. This downturn will frustrate some homeowners who bought at peak prices, while higher interest rates could severely impact some homeowners forced to renew mortgages at higher interest rates.
“While much of the COVID-19 support spending is now in the rear-view mirror, governments continue to have a heightened presence in the economy,” continued Mallett. “The pandemic brought about a new era of challenges to public finances, which were hardly looking rosy heading into the pandemic. The most notable question mark in today’s fiscal climate is how well governments can cope with new economic shocks.”
From the Fraser Institute
This year’s COP wants to fast-track the world’s transition to “clean” energy, help vulnerable communities adapt to climate change, work on “mobilizing inclusivity” (whatever that means) and “delivering on climate finance,” which is shorthand for having wealthier developed countries such as Canada transfer massive amounts of wealth to developing countries.
Every year, the United Nations convenes a Conferences of Parties to set the world’s agenda to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It’s the biggest event of the year for the climate industry. This year’s conference (COP29), which ends on Sunday, drew an army of government officials, NGOs, celebrities and journalists (many flying on GHG-emitting jet aircraft) to Baku, Azerbaijan.
The COP follows a similar narrative every year. It opens with a set of ambitious goals for climate policies, followed by days of negotiating as countries jockey to carve out agreements that most favour their goals. In the last two days, they invariably reach a sticking point when it appears the countries might fail to reach agreement. But they burn some midnight oil, some charismatic actors intervene (in the past, this included people such as Al Gore), and with great drama, an agreement is struck in time for the most important event of the year, flying off to their protracted winter holidays.
This year’s COP wants to fast-track the world’s transition to “clean” energy, help vulnerable communities adapt to climate change, work on “mobilizing inclusivity” (whatever that means) and “delivering on climate finance,” which is shorthand for having wealthier developed countries such as Canada transfer massive amounts of wealth to developing countries.
Some of these agenda items are actually improvements over previous COPs. For example, they’re actually talking about “climate adaptation”—the unwanted stepchild of climate policies—more this year. But as usual, money remains a number one priority. As reported in the Associated Press, “negotiators are working on a new amount of cash for developing nations to transition to clean energy, adapt to climate change and deal with weather disasters. It’ll replace the current goal of $100 billion (USD) annually—a goal set in 2009.” Moreover, “experts” claim the world needs between $1 trillion and $1.3 trillion (yes, trillion) in “climate finance” annually. Not to be outdone, according to an article in the Euro News, other experts want $9 trillion per year by 2030. Clearly, the global edifice that is climate change activism is all about the money.
Reportedly, COP29 is in its final section of the meta-narrative, with much shouting over getting to a final agreement. One headline in Voice of America reads “Slow progress on climate finance fuels anger as COP29 winds down.” And Argus News says “climate finance talks to halt, parties fail to cut options.” We only await the flying in of this year’s crop of climate megafauna to seal the deal.
This year’s conference in Baku shows more clearly than ever before that the real goal of the global climate cognoscenti is a giant wealth transfer from developed to developing countries. Previous climate conferences, whatever their faults, focused more on setting emission reduction targets and timelines and less about how the UN can extract more money from developed countries. The final conflict of COP29 isn’t about advancing clean energy targets or helping vulnerable countries adapt to climate change technologically, it’s all about show me the money.
Author:
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Average compensation for a federal bureaucrat is $125,300. Cutting back the bureaucracy to population growth would save taxpayers $9 billion every year
Dumb government spending doesn’t stop at the 49th parallel.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced the creation of a Department of Government Efficiency, with a mandate to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.”
Those marching orders sure would sound good in a prime minister’s mandate letter to a finance minister. And here’s the blueprint they should follow.
Begin with crazy research Canadian taxpayers are forced to subsidize.
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council spends $1 billion a year supporting “research and research training in the social sciences and humanities.”
Here’s a little taste of the reports it funds with your tax dollars:
- Gender Politics in Peruvian Rock Music ($20,000)
- Cart-ography: tracking the birth, life and death of an urban grocery cart, from work product to work tool ($105,000)
- My Paw in Yours: Dead Pets and Transcendence of Species Divides in Experimental Art-Making Practice ($17,500)
- Playing for Pleasure: The Affective Experience of Sexual and Erotic Video Games ($50,000)
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Parks Canada put Mr. Magoo in charge of its hunting operations. It spent four years and $10,000 capturing a single bullfrog and dropped $800,000 hunting 84 deer on a B.C. Island. How can a simple hunt cost $10,000 per deer?
Well, hunting gets more expensive when instead of your grandpa’s old rifle, you use prohibited semi-automatic weapons, instead of a box of shells, you get a crate of ammo, and instead of your buddy’s old pickup, you rent a helicopter for $67,000.
Or how about the $8-million barn at Rideau Hall. Or $12,500 live senior citizen sex story shows. Or the $8,800 sex toy show in Germany. Or the millions wasted producing government podcasts no one listens to.
Then there’s government officials living high on the hog.
Governor General Mary Simon spent $71,000 on limo services in Iceland. Bureaucrats spend $76,000 a month renting art. Global Affairs Canada spends $51,000 on booze a month.
Now, the big stuff.
The size and cost of the government is out of control. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hired 108,000 new bureaucrats. That’s a 42 per cent increase in less than a decade.
Had the bureaucracy only increased with population growth, there would be 72,491 fewer bureaucrats today.
Average compensation for a federal bureaucrat is $125,300. Cutting back the bureaucracy to population growth would save taxpayers $9 billion every year.
It’s time to stop rewarding failure with bonuses.
The feds dished out $1.5 billion in bonuses since 2015.
And the bonuses flow despite federal departments only managing to hit half of their performance targets once in the past five years.
Government executives overseeing ArriveSCAM took $340,000 in bonuses.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation rubberstamped $102 million in bonuses amid the worst housing crisis in Canadian history.
The Bank of Canada printed $20 million in bonus cheques in 2022, as inflation reached a 40-year high.
The CBC dished out $132 million in bonuses since 2015.
The next thing on the chopping block? Corporate welfare.
Trudeau put taxpayers on the hook for $30 billion in subsidies to multinational corporations like Honda,Volkswagen, Stellantis and Northvolt.
Federal corporate subsidies totalled $11.2 billion in 2022 alone.
Shutting down the federal government’s seven regional development agencies would save taxpayers an estimated $1.5 billion annually.
True efficiency would also mean eliminating failing government operations altogether. The feds should sell any Crown corporation that can, or should, be left to the private sector.
Here are a few examples.
The CBC, which takes more than $1 billion from taxpayers annually.
Canada Post, which lost $1.2 billion in the last two years and forecasts “larger, unsustainable losses in future years.”
VIA Rail, took $1.8 billion in taxpayer cash during the past five years just to cover operating losses.
The bad news for taxpayers is we pay too much tax because the government wastes too money. The list of wasteful spending in this article is far from exhaustive.
Other examples include the multi-billion dollar gun confiscation that police officers say won’t work, the $25-billion equalization scheme and taxpayer-funded media bailouts, among others.
The good news is a champion of taxpayers could make massive cuts and barely anyone outside the Ottawa bubble would notice.
This is the blueprint to slash Ottawa’s wasteful, bloated bureaucracy. All we need now is a prime minister with the guts to pick up the scissors.
Ottawa’s avalanche of spending hasn’t helped First Nations
COP 29 leaders demand over a $1 trillion a year in climate reparations from ‘wealthy’ nations. They don’t deserve a nickel.
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