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VANCOUVER — Governments in Canada have spent or forgone more than $150 billion in the past decade on low-carbon initiatives that have produced only limited employment gains, according to new research from the Fraser Institute.
The studies say Ottawa and the four largest provinces — Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia — have spent or foregone an estimated $158 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars since 2014-15 in efforts to build a “clean” economy. The spending and tax credits have created, at most, 68,000 jobs defined as part of the clean economy by Statistics Canada.
The first report, The Fiscal Cost of Canada’s Low-Carbon Economy, argues that the results fall short of expectations for a decade of government intervention. It says the total likely underestimates the real cost because it excludes municipal programs, regulatory impacts and low-carbon investments in smaller provinces.
A companion study, Sizing Canada’s Clean Economy, concludes that the clean-tech sector’s share of the national economy has barely changed over the past decade. It accounted for 3.1 per cent of GDP in 2014 and 3.6 per cent in 2023.
The researchers say the findings show that despite significant public spending, Canada’s clean-economy transition has not transformed the $3.3-trillion national economy.
The Fraser Institute describes itself as an independent, non-partisan public policy think tank based in Vancouver.
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