Fraser Institute News Release: Nearly half of all Canadian private sector industries experienced a major drop in investment from 2015-19

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 29, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Seven of 15 Canadian industries experienced an overall decline in investment from 2015 to 2019, according to a new analysis by the Fraser Institute, an independent non-partisan Canadian think tank.

“In a troubling trend, a wide range of industries in Canada have experienced a decline in investment, which is bad news for the economy,” said Steven Globerman, senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and co-author of Industry-Level Private Sector Capital Expenditures in Canada: 1990-2019.

From 2015 to 2019, despite the absence of a major recession (as Canada experienced in the early 1990s and 2008-09), more domestic industries experienced decreases in capital investment than at any time since 1990. While the oil and gas industry experienced the largest (-48 per cent) and most high-profile decline in investment, other industries including agriculture, forestry, and fishing (-19 per cent), utilities (-19 per cent) and retail trade (-11 per cent) also experienced meaningful declines.

Crucially, a majority of the 15 industries experienced decreases in investment in machinery, equipment, and intellectual property products (such as software), all of which significantly affect productivity and living standards.

“If policymakers in Ottawa and across Canada want to help improve private-sector investment performance, they should enact tax and regulatory reforms, particularly now as Canada emerges from the COVID recession,” Globerman said.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Steven Globerman, Senior Fellow
Fraser Institute

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Drue MacPherson, Fraser Institute
(604) 688-0221 ext. 721
[email protected]

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The Fraser Institute is an independent Canadian public policy research and educational organization with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal and ties to a global network of think-tanks in 87 countries. Its mission is to improve the quality of life for Canadians, their families and future generations by studying, measuring and broadly communicating the effects of government policies, entrepreneurship and choice on their well-being. To protect the Institute’s independence, it does not accept grants from governments or contracts for research. Visit www.fraserinstitute.org