A new report warns that Canada’s trend toward greater restrictions on economic freedom could lead to a weakened economy in the future. According to the Fraser Institute’s annual North American rankings report, for the first time, every province in Canada ranks in the bottom half of jurisdictions.
Fred McMahon, the Dr. Michael A. Walker Chair in Economic Freedom at the public policy think tank, stated in a press release that since 2014, all Canadian provinces have suffered significant declines in economic freedom at all government levels. Economic freedom allows individuals to make their own economic decisions about buying, working, and starting a business, and the report considers this autonomy fundamental to economic prosperity.
The report ranks economic freedom using two indexes: a sub-national index that measures restrictions on freedom at the provincial/state and local levels across 92 jurisdictions in Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and an all-government index that includes federal restrictions.
Alberta is the highest-ranking Canadian province in the all-government index, tied for 31st place with the U.S. state of Connecticut. However, this represents a substantial decline for the province, which ranked at the top of the index for seven years before falling out of the top spot in the Fraser Institute’s 2018 report.
Following Alberta, British Columbia is the second-highest-ranked province (45th), followed by Ontario (50th) and Manitoba (54th).
Seven of Canada’s provinces rank below all 50 U.S. states. They include Manitoba and the four Atlantic provinces, along with Saskatchewan (55th) and Quebec (56th).
The report also notes that average economic freedom in all three North American countries has steadily declined since it peaked in 2004, and that Canada has seen a steady decline since 2014, making it an outlier among the three nations in that period.