On Sat, 21 Feb 2026 20:16:39 -0000 (UTC), BTR1701 <
atropos@mac.com>
wrote:
How Canadia Became Poorer Than Alabama
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-out-of-nowhere-canada-became-poorer-than-alabama-how-is-that-possible/
-------------------------------
"We imported millions of people from 3rd-world shitholes and now our country >is turning into a giant 3rd-world shithole. How is that possible?"
https://ibb.co/4wW6rPfg
They annoyed me enough with not giving me enough of a sense of what
was in the article that I got around their protections. First by
finding the following article from the same site that covers the high
level discussion and then the detailed article listed at the bottom.
The upshot of both articles is that Alabama is competing for jobs on
an international basis and winning, at least in some circumstances.
Due both to a push by the government to attract new businesses and a
lower cost labor force. None of which is new or should be to anyone.
It's one of the reasons ICEs interaction with the Koreans brought over
to help with the Hyundai(I think that was the company) plant in
Georgia made the news. It's been going on for some years now with a
number of car manufacturers building plants in Alabama, Georgia and
South Carolina. No surprise something similar might happen with drug manufacturers like Eli Lily, the main company mentioned in the story
below.
I copied both articles for you below so you can read them here or on
the web sites. The web sites would also include charts with additional
data not included here.
Enjoy!
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-business-brief-how-canada-became-poorer-than-alabama/
Good morning. Today, we?re eating humble pie for breakfast because,
somehow, Canada flipped from being a rich G7 country to poorer than
Alabama ? at least by one important metric. How?s that possible?
Annie Buckland works inside CoLab at the Hudson Alpha Research Park in Huntsville Alabama on February 6th, 2026.Charity Rachelle/Supplied
In focus
An overdue wake-up call
Hi, I?m Tim Kiladze, a financial reporter and columnist, and for the
past few years, I?ve been dying to know: Is Canada seriously poorer
than Alabama? In today?s edition, we?ve got answers, both from talking
to economic experts and from travelling to the Deep South for an
on-the-ground investigation.
The data point that spurred this panic started flying around economic
circles in 2023, largely thanks to some number crunching by economist
Trevor Tombe, who measured per capita GDP for every Canadian province
and every U.S. state. It took on a life of its own in 2024 when even
The Economist wrote about it, all at a time when Canadians had severe
economic angst and were furious with Ottawa for runaway home prices
and soaring grocery costs.
It would have been understandable if Canada?s economy had fallen
farther behind the broader United States, which has been at the
forefront of the technological revolution. But Alabama?
The issue ultimately died down because Donald Trump was re-elected and
he distracted everyone with his trade war. Then there was a federal
election in Canada. But it was still important to know: Is it real?
Because if so, it has major implications for Canada?s standing on the
global stage.
Open this photo in gallery:
Greenhouse assistant Lauren Holder inspects Miscanthus grass inside
the Kathy L Chan Green House at Hudson Alpha Research Part in Huntsville.Charity Rachelle/Supplied
To get to the bottom of it, two issues had to be studied. First, what
did per capita GDP, the measure used to judge our economic standing,
really account for? And two, it was time to see what Alabama was up
to.
Asking around about per capita GDP, it was quickly clear that its
usefulness is hotly contested. No single data point can measure a
country?s wellbeing. It can be a good starting point, but it?s not the
be-all and end-all. And it doesn?t capture what the average person
receives from a country?s production.
But that can?t be the end of the story, because when it comes to
Alabama, many Canadians would be floored by what?s happening there.
Huntsville, in the north, is a biotech and aerospace hub, and driving
around, you see just as many Subarus as you do pickup trucks. The
state has transformed into an auto-manufacturing powerhouse, now
producing nearly as many cars as Ontario. Alabama is also bigger than
you might think, home to five million people, about the same
population as Alberta, and its unemployment rate is now less than half
of Canada?s.
Open this photo in gallery:
Robert Sbrissa outisde his home in Hoover Alabama on Feb. 5,
2026.Charity Rachelle/Supplied
In Birmingham, I met Robert Sbrissa, who has seen the economic boom up
close. He and his family moved to the region from Montreal in 1996.
Initially, they assumed they?d do a two-year bid; in August, it?ll be
30 years in Alabama. ?The entrepreneurial spirit was like nothing I
had seen or experienced before,? he told me.
The state has its flaws, no doubt. For all the newfound wealth, it?s
still one of the poorest in the U.S. Its health care is also, on
average, among the worst in the U.S. But simply scoffing at those
stats will do Canadians no good, because places like Alabama are
competing for the same global capital now ? and quite often, they?re
winning it. In December, Huntsville won the beauty contest for a
US$6-billion Eli Lilly plant. It?s the kind of thing that could have
just as easily gone to Montreal, a pharmaceutical hub.
If Canada isn?t careful, places such as the Deep South will continue
to steal jobs ? and teach us lessons the hard way.
https://web.archive.org/web/20260221053839/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-out-of-nowhere-canada-became-poorer-than-alabama-how-is-that-possible/
This is the original article that goes into much more detail.
For an overdue wake-up call, The Globe travelled to the Deep South to understand how the state is breaking stereotypes and, at times,
looking richer than Canada
Tim Kiladze
Huntsville, alabama
The Globe and Mail
Published Yesterday
Tommy Battle, the five-term Mayor of Huntsville, Ala., at his office
in city hall.
Tommy Battle, the five-term Mayor of Huntsville, Ala., at his office
in city hall.
Charity Rachelle/The Globe and Mail
Comments
In December, Tommy Battle?s dream came true. The five-term Mayor of
Huntsville is Alabama to the bone, born in Birmingham and a graduate
of the state university in Tuscaloosa, but for the past 18 years he?s
tried to distance his city from the state?s unsavoury stereotypes.
Huntsville, in the north, is the home of the Saturn rocket program
that took on the Soviet Union?s Sputnik. It houses the second-largest
biotech research park in the United States. And it has attracted
high-end manufacturing investments such as Blue Origin?s rocket engine
plant.
But Alabama tropes are hard to shake: The state is backward and full
of bible thumpers and bigots ? allegedly. When local companies try to
hire from afar, Mayor Battle says recruits often hear the same
responses when telling their spouses: ??Huntsville?? With one question
mark. Then they say, ?Alabama???? With three question marks.?
Translation: You?ve got to be kidding me.
But in December, Huntsville had the last laugh. Eli Lilly and Co. was
looking to build a US$6-billion manufacturing plant that would create
3,000 construction jobs and employ 450 engineers, scientists, lab
technicians and operations staff. After narrowing down the field of
300 bidders, the pharmaceutical giant named Huntsville a winner, one
of four new facilities in the U.S. It?s the state?s largest-ever
private industrial investment, and it personifies the tagline the
Mayor has preached: ?Huntsville: a smart place.?
For eons, Canadians have viewed Alabama as a small state that, save
for a few pockets, is dirt poor. All anybody seems to know about
Alabama is that Montgomery and Birmingham were the centre of the civil
rights movement. In 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his
?Letter from a Birmingham Jail,? he called Birmingham ?probably the
most thoroughly segregated city in the United States.?
So, it was a shock when Canadian economist Trevor Tombe and the
International Monetary Fund ran the numbers in 2023 and 2024 and
concluded that Canada had, in fact, become poorer than Alabama.
To measure this, they calculated gross domestic product (GDP) per
capita. In simple terms, it?s the size of the Canadian economy in a
given year divided by the population. The same was done for Alabama.
After adjusting for foreign exchange and some cost differences in both countries, the average for Canada?s 10 provinces was estimated at
US$55,000 in 2022, the same as Alabama. Shortly after, the IMF found
Canada had actually fallen behind the southern state. (Canada has
since edged ever-so-slightly higher than Alabama; the numbers are
volatile from year to year.)
The timing was terrible for the Canadian psyche. Home prices were on
an astronomical trajectory, inflation made everyday items such as
groceries far more expensive and there was deep resentment toward
Ottawa. Canadians could probably stomach having their living standards
slip relative to the broader U.S., the epicentre of the world?s tech revolution. But Alabama?
For an ego check, The Globe and Mail travelled to the Deep South to
understand how this happened. Immediately, it was obvious Alabama is misunderstood. In Huntsville, there are as many Subaru Outbacks as
there are pickup trucks, and the geography in Alabama?s two largest metropolitan areas ? Birmingham and Huntsville ? looks nothing like
the historical imagery.
Open this photo in gallery:
Mr. Battle has spent his tenure trying to distance his city from the
state?s unsavoury stereotypes and instead highlight its growth in
recent decades.Charity Rachelle/The Globe and Mail
?Most people think of Alabama as flat pasture land with cotton
fields,? says Daniel Hughes, a real estate executive who took his Montgomery-based company, BSR Real Estate Investment Trust, public on
the Toronto Stock Exchange. Huntsville and Birmingham, though, are
nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Looking out
from Mayor Battle?s seventh-floor office in city hall, the landscape
could easily be Vermont.
Alabama is also home to five million people ? the same population as
Alberta ? and its economy is booming. The state?s unemployment rate is
now just 2.7 per cent, versus 6.5 per cent in Canada, and its major
employers include Airbus SE and giant defence contractor Northrop
Grumman Corp. The state has also morphed into an auto manufacturing
powerhouse with plants from Mercedes-Benz AG, Toyota Motor Corp.,
Hyundai Motor Co. and more. In 2024, Alabama made nearly as many
vehicles as Ontario.
TENN.
Memphis
Huntsville
S.C.
Atlanta
Birmingham
ALABAMA
MISS.
GA.
Montgomery
U.S.
U.S.
200 km
the glObe and maIl, source: openstreetmap
Of course, there is much more to an economy ? and to quality of life ?
than industrial prowess. Alabama still has some serious flaws. For
people living in poverty, there is almost no floor, and access to
quality education remains a pipe dream for many.
There are also limits to how much can actually be gleaned from per
capita GDP. It is not the Holy Grail. To start, one key variable is
population, and Canada?s has exploded over the past four years. That
alone skews the numbers.
But being on the ground in Alabama, it was obvious that Canadians need
a wake-up call. They tend to view the economy through a historical
lens ? this is a G7 country that has long punched above its weight.
Yet capital is global now and competition for it is fierce. If Canada
isn?t careful, places such as the Deep South will continue to steal
jobs. The Eli Lilly plant awarded in December could have just as
easily gone to Montreal, a pharmaceutical hub.
In other words, it might be time to eat some humble pie. ?People have
a lot to learn from Alabama,? Mr. Hughes says.
How Alabama transformed
Researchers Haley Hale and Annie Buckland conduct lab work at the
HudsonAlpha Institute for biotechnology in Huntsville. Charity
Rachelle/The Globe and Mail
Alabama?s sea change started in 1993. Historically, the state had an agricultural economy fuelled by slavery in the Black Belt, a stretch
of rich, dark soil that was ideal for growing cotton. Over time,
Alabama diversified with forestry products, textile and apparel
manufacturing, and steel ? Birmingham had iron ore, coal and
limestone, which are perfect ingredients. But eventually the
mechanization of farming, foreign competition for steelmakers and a
rising U.S. dollar became troublesome.
By the early 1980s, Alabama had the second-highest unemployment rate
in the country. At a 1985 seminar in Birmingham, Sheila Tschinkel, the
director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, a central
bank regional office, laid it all out. Companies, she said, were
scared away by ?the relatively low educational level of Alabama?s work
force and its lack of flexibility, the state?s remoteness from
national markets and deficiencies in infrastructure that make
outsiders reluctant to move to many sections of the state.? It was a
trifecta of doom.
Mercedes-Benz was the saviour. In the early 1990s, the automaker was
struggling with high costs at its German plants and competition from
Japanese luxury brands such as Lexus, so it decided to launch a luxury
SUV plant in the U.S. The automaker made states bid against each
other, and Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina all ponied up
big tax incentives. The cherry on top: All three are right-to-work
states, which means unions can?t charge individuals mandatory dues.
Open this photo in gallery:
Workers install a sign near near Tuscaloosa, Ala., announcing a future
North American Mercedes-Benz plant, in September, 1993. The German
auto maker?s investment in the state kickstarted a wave of companies
looking to build their production facilities in Alabama.John C.
Hillery/REUTERS
In the end, Vance, a city just outside Birmingham, won the beauty
contest. Sometimes it?s the little things that matter. Reports at the
time said Alabama simply showed more zeal ? plus the Germans liked the
woods and rolling hills around Birmingham, which reminded them of the countryside around Stuttgart.
That single investment turned into the tip of a very long spear. A few
years later, Honda Motor Co. Ltd. opened a plant in Lincoln, then
Hyundai built its own near Montgomery. Mazda Motor Corp. and Toyota
are now also in Huntsville, where they share a manufacturing facility.
Auto suppliers have piled in, too. Michigan remains the top auto
producer in Canada and the U.S., with two million vehicles
manufactured in 2024, but Alabama is now in the top five, producing
1.2 million vehicles annually, close to the 1.3 million that Ontario
churns out.
The irony of all this is that Alabama?s success was almost too good.
The incentives started to strain the state?s finances.
Whenever a new opportunity emerged, Alabama would layer discounts on
property and sales taxes as well as large capital investment tax
credits on top of a competitive corporate tax rate. The state also
wasn?t shy to add in some cash grants. In other words, Alabama would
throw the kitchen sink at new investments, and companies could use the
benefits up front, before any revenue was generated.
Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, Alabama Secretary of Commerce Greg
Canfield and Alabama Governor Kay Ivey hold a press conference with
executives from Toyota and Mazda to announce plans to build a
joint-venture plant in Huntsville, in January, 2018. Albert Cesare/The Montgomery Advertiser via AP
An employee works on the Toyota engine assembly line in Huntsville,
where Mazda and Toyota share a manufacturing facility. Carlos
Barria/Reuters
Because of this structure, Alabama often had to borrow money to fund
the program. ?We weren?t being great stewards to the taxpayers,? says
Greg Canfield, the state?s former commerce secretary, who was tasked
with fixing the problem. He has since developed something of a cult
following in the state for revamping it while also keeping the
investment dollars coming.
To fix the program, Mr. Canfield simplified it all, offering smaller
tax credits for capital investments and adding in some time limits.
Crucially, the incentives could only be accessed once companies built
their facilities and hired employees, and there were clawbacks if
companies didn?t keep their promises.
It was a risk, but Alabama didn?t feel as desperate anymore. ?We felt
like we could win most of the time based on having available sites,
available work force, good business climate, low taxes and speed to
market,? Mr. Canfield explains from the office of Burr & Forman LLP in Birmingham, where he is now a managing director of economic
development. The last point was key. When companies invested in
Alabama, they could receive permits and begin construction quickly.
Red tape was for suckers.
Open this photo in gallery:
A prototype of a Mercedes-Benz Electric SUV is displayed at the
automaker?s battery pack plant in Bibb County, Ala., in March,
2022.Reuters
Another signature achievement of his: putting together a marketing
campaign for the state. ?Whenever I had travelled around the world,
nobody knew where Alabama was,? he says. ?If they?d heard of it, it
wasn?t a positive image.? He hired a branding agency and launched a
campaign called ?Made in Alabama.? Reminiscing, he pulls up the old
slide deck on his iPad, grinning like a proud father.
At the local level, Huntsville deployed a similar approach. When Mayor
Battle won his first election, in 2008, ?we had great entry-level
jobs. Hospitality, landscaping, etc.,? he says. ?And we had great jobs
on the top end, which was, you know, your rocket scientist, your
technical person, your doctorate people who worked out at Redstone
Arsenal. That middle ground was where our work force was lacking.?
Huntsville targeted its incentives toward this sector. Its first big
win, in 2014, was a new plant for Remington Outdoor Co., the rifle
maker. (Some stereotypes don?t die.) Soon afterward, Polaris Inc.
arrived, opening a plant to produce its auto-cycle, the Slingshot, and
an off-road utility vehicle, the Ranger. Then GE Aviation arrived, and
then after that, Aerojet Rocketdyne, which now produces solid rocket
motors in Huntsville.
HudsonAlpha is now home to 40 biotech companies, and has been
recognized in the pharmaceutical industry for the role it plays in
workforce training and research. Charity Rachelle/The Globe and Mail
The city also leaned into its expertise. After the Second World War,
the U.S. government brought over German engineers who?d developed
aircraft, rockets and missiles for the Nazis. This group eventually
settled in Huntsville and worked out of Redstone Arsenal. (Despite
their pasts, the U.S. decided it was more important to win the budding
Cold War with the Soviets.) The scientists, led by Wernher von Braun,
went on to develop the Saturn rockets used for America?s missions to
the moon. It?s why Huntsville is now known as Rocket City.
All this innovation seeped into the city?s mindset. In 2004, two
benefactors, the late Lonnie McMillian, a telecommunications
executive, and Jim Hudson, a businessman who?d founded Research
Genetics, a company that helped map the human genome, used their money
to seed a life sciences ecosystem. To lead it, they hired the former
director of Stanford University?s Human Genome Center.
The guiding hope was that one day the campus would attract world-class organizations. HudsonAlpha is now home to 40 biotech companies, and
its home run came in December, when Eli Lilly came to town.
The dark side of the boom
Canadian Robert Sbrissa moved to Alabama with his family three decades
ago. Though Birmingham is now a vibrant city emerging from a
tumultuous past, Mr. Sbrissa acknowledges that a wealth disparity is
visible, including in the school system. Charity Rachelle/The Globe
and Mail
Robert Sbrissa has seen the boom up close. Originally from Montreal,
he and his wife, Monica, moved to Birmingham in 1996 with two young
kids. The financial software company he worked for was based in the
U.S., and it asked him to move down. The family mulled it over, then
bit. ?It was a day in March that snowed about 15 inches in Montreal
and I said, ?Let?s give it a shot.?? The couple assumed they?d do a
two-year stint. This August, it?ll be 30 years in Alabama.
Over dinner at the golf and country club in Greystone, the affluent neighbourhood where his family now lives, Mr. Sbrissa says their
experience is a common one. ?You get people who move here for work ?
and not a lot of people leave.?
First, the U.S. simply pays more for many senior white-collar jobs,
and top personal tax rates in Alabama can be around 40 per cent.
Today, they?re 53.5 per cent in Ontario. The size of the U.S. economy
is also breathtaking ? and companies make decisions faster. It?s a
dream for someone in sales. ?The entrepreneurial spirit was like
nothing I had seen or experienced before,? he says.
Open this photo in gallery:
Mr. Sbrissa walks through the golf course in Greystone, the affluent neighbourhood where his family now lives.Charity Rachelle/Supplied
Daily life was also a joy. Neighbours really are friendly in the
South; the kids went to public schools equivalent to top private
schools in Canada; and because the family could afford it, the health
care is fantastic. Mr. Sbrissa recently got a magnetic resonance
imaging scan within days.
As for Birmingham itself, there?s the beauty of the rolling hills,
which deliver stunning fall foliage. And the city?s becoming a foodie
hub. A new restaurant, Bayonet, was named one of America?s 50 best
restaurants by The New York Times last fall. And despite the bible
thumping, Birmingham has a sizable LGBTQ+ community and scored the
same as Boston on the Human Rights Campaign?s Municipal Equality
Index.
There is a ?but.? The metro area, Mr. Sbrissa says, has noticeable
income divisions. The public high school his son went to had a
football field that installed the same turf as Gillette Stadium, the
home of the New England Patriots. ?You go 25 miles down the road and
these kids don?t have books,? he says.
A teacher prepares for class at James Rushton Early Learning Center in Woodlawn. For decades, the dire state of the Woodland?s schools has
stunted the community's ability to recover and grow. The subsidized
learning center is part of a community initiative for better education opportunities, and part of the broader efforts to rebuild the
neighbourhood. Charity Rachelle/The Globe and Mail
The way schools are funded is part of the problem. A good chunk of the
money comes from town property taxes, In Greystone, the average list
price for a home is currently US$1.5-million. In Woodlawn, which is
close to the downtown core, it?s US$230,000. Alabama also has low
property tax rates that average just 0.4 per cent annually, the
second-lowest in the country. When they are multiplied by house
prices, poorer areas have much less money to pay for quality teachers.
It?s baked-in inequality that exists across much of the U.S.
Structural issues such as these leave a long tail of destruction,
something Mashonda Taylor, chief executive officer of a community
organization called Woodlawn United, is trying to combat. Woodlawn
used to be a thriving middle-class community, but people fled after
the Civil Rights Era and after the steel business in town petered out.
To rebuild, Woodlawn is using a multipronged approach: adding
mixed-income housing; emphasizing public safety and green spaces;
beefing up education opportunities, such as a subsidized early
learning centre; and helping residents land stable, well-paying jobs.
But the dire state of the community?s schools makes a rebirth that
much more complicated. She sees residents in their 20s who struggle to
break the cycle of poverty. ?They didn?t learn how to read. Or do
basic math,? she says. ?So, you can?t get a higher-quality job.?
Open this photo in gallery:
Woodlawn United President and CEO Mashonda Taylor. The organization,
founded in 2010, takes a multi-pronged approach to breaking the
neighbourhood?s cycle of poverty.Charity Rachelle/Supplied
It?s often even worse in rural areas, which make up 42 per cent of the
state?s population. Within the Appalachian Region, 26 per cent of
adults read below third-grade level, and 40 per cent of adults
struggle to solve math problems that require more than one step,
according to the Appalachian Learning Initiative.
As for health care, in 2025 the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation that
conducts independent research, ranked Alabama 42nd out of the 50
states for its overall health system performance. In rural areas,
hospitals are having trouble simply staying open.
There are many ways to slice and dice the data to show how Alabama is
far behind Canada when it comes to overall health, but one statistic
sums it up. For all the investment dollars that Alabama has brought
in, the state?s life expectancy is still just 74 years, the
fourth-lowest in the U.S. In Canada, it?s 82 years, one of the highest worldwide.
The perils of per capita GDP
Pedestrians cross a busy street in Vancouver. One component in the per
capita calculation is population, and Canada?s has exploded in the
past few years, much faster than the U.S. growth rate on a percentage
basis. Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters
All these nuances ? the income disparity, the life expectancy, the
kids who can?t read ? epitomize why Jim Stanford, a veteran economist,
is so mystified by the recent obsession with per capita GDP. The
metric, he says, doesn?t capture what the average person receives from
a country?s production.
He breaks down the formula to explain his point. There are multiple
ways to calculate GDP, but he likes to use the income approach, which
adds up everything earned in the economy ? wages, profits and
investment income. Mr. Stanford says only about half of GDP is paid to
workers; much of the rest comes from corporate profits and investment
income, and they mostly flow to the wealthy as shareholders.
To his mind, Ireland illustrates this problem best. By the IMF?s
calculations, Ireland has the third-highest per capita GDP in the
world, around US$150,000. Mr. Stanford says that is divorced from
reality. ?I?ve slung a Guinness or two in an Irish pub. Great country.
Friendly people. Not rich,? he says. Ireland?s figure is skewed
because many global companies book their international profits there,
owing to the country?s low corporate tax rate.
As for the second component in the GDP per capita calculation ?
population ? Canada?s soared by two million people in 2023 and 2024.
That?s much faster than the equivalent U.S. growth rate on a
percentage basis. It takes time for all these newcomers to start
materially boosting GDP and offset their drag on the per capita
number.
What, then, are Canadians to make of all this?
To start, per capita GDP isn?t the be-all and end-all. In Alabama,
tens of billions of dollars of direct investment have poured in over
the past decade, but the state?s minimum wage is still just US$7.25.
Not every worker benefits. In fact, Alabama recently ranked as the
third-worst state for financial hardship, according to official U.S.
government data, with 41 per cent saying they had a somewhat difficult
or very difficult time making ends meet.
Per capita GDP also doesn?t reflect social values. Canada has a high
rate of unionization, which many people love. Meanwhile, Alabama has a
total abortion ban except in dire health scenarios.
But there are things to learn from the South. Mr. Canfield, the former
commerce secretary, can?t emphasize it enough: For businesses, speed
to market matters. Companies that put capital at risk want to earn
back those investment dollars as quickly as possible.
In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney has floated the possibility of a
new pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific Ocean, but just this week,
Enbridge Inc. said it won?t touch the project because it can?t sink
more money into something that may never see the light of day.
Alabama?s evolution also poses a somewhat existential question for
Canadians: In a competitive, global market, why should companies
invest in the Great White North?
Last fall, there was an uproar in Ontario because Stellantis NV, the
automaker, said it would shut a plant in Brampton, Ont. The timing,
tied to U.S. President Donald Trump?s tariff regime, dominated
headlines. But what got lost is that Brampton, a suburb of Toronto, is
now a very expensive place to live, with an average detached home
price of $1.05-million. The union that represents Stellantis workers
has to fight for higher wages, and that makes the plant less
profitable for the company.
The Stellantis vehicle assembly plant in Brampton, Ont., in October,
2025. Stellantis announced plans to close the facility and move
production of its Jeep Compass to Illinois, causing uproar in Ontario.
Nathan Danette/The Canadian Press; Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Think about it from a CEO?s vantage point: If workers in Canada are
more expensive, they should provide value over and above what a
newly-trained ? and cheaper ? work force in Alabama can offer,
especially considering there is now also an entire auto parts supplier
network in Alabama and a major port nearby in Savannah, Ga., that?s
bigger than any in Canada.
To Canada?s credit, it isn?t exactly standing still. One of Prime
Minister Carney?s first moves last year was to establish a Major
Projects Office to streamline regulatory reviews for projects that
Ottawa deems to be in the national interest. Bye-bye red tape.
But the federal government can?t solve every problem. Over the years,
there has been report after report on how to make Canada?s economy
more vibrant. Boost interprovincial trade. Tap Canada?s highly
educated work force to fuel the innovation sector. Recruit skilled
immigrants. Canadians have the answers, and yet, somehow, nothing
really changes.
Why is that? In 2007, one of these reports was commissioned by Stephen
Harper?s government, and the authors, led by Red Wilson, came to this conclusion: ?Canadians do not perceive that there is an imminent
crisis.? Canadians certainly don?t want the country to fall behind as
more nimble and aggressive competitors rise, the authors added, but
they ?do not appear to have a view about what needs to be done to
avoid this outcome.? If Ottawa commissioned yet another report today,
its conclusion could easily be the same.
So, yes, Canadians should take it all with a grain of salt. Alabama
has its flaws. Per capita GDP does, too. But there is a glaring lesson
in the Deep South: If Canadians remain complacent, the rest of the
world will eat our lunch.
--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)