{"id":726727,"date":"2026-06-10T05:36:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T05:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/726727\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T05:36:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T05:36:19","slug":"canadas-ugly-growth-experience-holds-lessons-for-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/726727\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada’s “ugly” growth experience holds lessons for Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada\u2019s newly declared recession has exposed how heavily the country\u2019s headline GDP growth relied on record\u2011high immigration, with Prime Minister Mark Carney acknowledging that reducing immigration contributed to the downturn, according to the National Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Analysts argue this simply reveals what has been true for years: Canada\u2019s economy has been expanding only because its population was expanding, not because productivity or living standards were improving.<\/p>\n

\"Canada<\/p>\n

Post\u2011COVID GDP increases were largely driven by adding millions of new consumers (temporary workers, students, asylum seekers, permanent residents).<\/p>\n

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\"Canadian<\/p>\n

In both 2024 and 2025, GDP grew slower than population, meaning GDP per capita fell.<\/p>\n

Economists describe this as a \u201cper\u2011capita recession\u201d, with Canadians effectively becoming poorer.<\/p>\n

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\"Canada's<\/p>\n

The Fraser Institute found that from 2020 to 2024, Canada\u2019s population grew by 6.4% while GDP grew by only 6%, producing the worst five\u2011year decline in per\u2011capita GDP since the Great Depression. It called this phenomenon Canada\u2019s \u201cugly\u201d growth experience.<\/p>\n

The National Post article argues that Canada\u2019s economic model has been masking stagnation by relying on immigration\u2011driven GDP growth. Once immigration was reduced, the underlying weakness became visible.<\/p>\n

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Lessons for Australia:<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s experience echoes Australia, which experienced 10 quarters of negative GDP per capita growth over the past 15 quarters.<\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/p>\n

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Australia\u2019s real per capita GDP in the March quarter of 2026 was tracking 0.5% below where it was in the June quarter of 2022 when the Albanese Labor government took office.<\/p>\n

Like in Canada, Labor\u2019s record net overseas migration, which has averaged 1,162 per day in office (with the latest reading as of Q3 2025), has masked the decline in Australia\u2019s real per capita GDP.<\/p>\n

\"NOM<\/p>\n

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The surge in population growth has also masked the unprecedented decline in Australia\u2019s labour productivity growth, which has ranked among the poorest in the OECD over the post-pandemic period:<\/p>\n

\"GDP<\/p>\n

Taking a longer view, Australia\u2019s productivity and per capita GDP growth have been in secular decline ever since the federal government more than doubled net overseas migration in the mid-2000s:<\/p>\n

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\"GDP,<\/p>\n

In short, Australia, like Canada, traded investment-led, productivity-based growth for low-productivity, immigration-driven growth.<\/p>\n

\"Capital<\/p>\n

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Both nations are now suffering the consequences with living standards in retreat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s newly declared recession has exposed how heavily the country\u2019s headline GDP growth relied on record\u2011high immigration, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-726727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}