Canada's Economy Got Bigger. Per Person, It Barely Grew.

• Canada's real GDP grew 21.7%^source from 2015 to 2025. The population grew 16.5%^source. Real GDP per person grew 4.4%^source, about 0.4%^source a year.
• From 2019 to 2025, real GDP per person rose 0.9%^source in total. In mid-2026 it was still below its level in the third quarter of 2022^sourcesource.
• From 1997 to 2015, Canada kept pace with the United States on output per person. Since 2015 it has lost about 14%^source of its standing relative to the US, by Statistics Canada's measure. On OECD figures, Canada produced about 81%^source as much per person as the US in 2015, and about 71%^source in 2025.
• Alberta's real GDP per person fell 10.5%^source from 2014 to 2024. It fell again in 2023 and 2024^sourcesource even though the economy grew, because the population grew faster.
• Federal debt per person rose from $17,663^source to $30,521^source between March 2015 and March 2025: 33%^source after inflation, against 4.4%^source for real GDP per person.
• Canada met the usual test for a “technical recession” on the figures Statistics Canada published in May 2026: real GDP fell in the fourth quarter of 2025 and slipped again in the first quarter of 2026^sourcesource, and CBC and Global News reported it^sourcesource. In August the agency revised the first quarter to 0.1%^source growth.

Alberta's immigration referendum: who pays the bill →

Real GDP is the economy's total output after inflation. Divided by the population, it becomes real GDP per person, the standard measure of how much the economy produces for each of us.

From 2015 to 2025, real GDP grew 21.7%^source and the population grew 16.5%^source, so real GDP per person grew 4.4%^source over ten years, about 0.4%^source a year. Most of the decade's growth in the size of the economy came from adding people^source.

Growth per person slowed further after 2019. Real GDP per person rose 0.9%^source in total from 2019 to 2025. It fell in 2023 and again in 2024, by 0.8%^source each year^source, while the population grew 2.8%^source a year (July to July)^source. In mid-2026 it was still below where it stood in the third quarter of 2022^sourcesource.

“Immigration is critical to Canada’s economic growth,”^source Ottawa told Parliament in November 2022. The economy did get bigger. Output per person did not keep up, and Ottawa's own statistics agency reported it as it happened: by November 2024, Statistics Canada had reported 6^source straight quarters of falling real GDP per person. Later revisions cut that streak to 3^source quarters, from April to December 2023.

When Ottawa finally cut its targets, Parliament's budget officer ran the numbers. Its projection: the 2025-2027 plan would leave 1.4M^source fewer residents by the end of 2027 than the old policy, with real GDP 1.7%^source lower and real GDP per person 1.4%^source higher. A smaller economy, and more for each person in it.

Statistics Canada tracks Canada's real GDP per person as a ratio to the US's, set to 100 in early 1997. It stood at 100.3^source in the first quarter of 2015. By the third quarter of 2025 it was 86.4^source: in ten years Canada lost about 14%^source of its standing relative to the US.

It had not always been so. From 1997 to 2015, output per person grew at the same pace in both countries: 1.53%^source a year in Canada and 1.52%^source in the US. From 2015 to 2025 it grew 0.82%^source a year in Canada and 2.07%^source in the US.

The agency's economists describe a “steady deterioration of Canada’s relative per capita output,”^source which they date from the oil price shock of the mid-2010s. After 2015, they write, Canada's GDP grew more slowly than the US's while its population growth sped up. Canada stopped turning population growth into more hours worked at the pace it once did, and commodity prices no longer helped. They name slower productivity growth as the principal reason Canada is falling behind^source.

The OECD's numbers agree. From 2015 to 2025, real GDP per person rose 4.3%^source in Canada and 19.6%^source in the US. Of the 37^source OECD members with data, only Mexico and Luxembourg did worse^source. In 2021 the OECD projected Canada's long-run potential growth in output per person at 0.7%^source a year for 2020 to 2030 and 0.8%^source for 2030 to 2060, tied for the lowest among its members in both periods. That is a projection of potential (trend) output, not a forecast of actual growth.

In March 2024 the Bank of Canada's senior deputy governor, Carolyn Rogers, called weak productivity an emergency: “I’m saying that it’s an emergency—it’s time to break the glass.”^source Canada's output per hour, she said, had fallen from 88%^source of the US level in 1984 to 71%^source in 2022.

Statistics Canada's growth rates here are averages of quarterly annualized rates, not compound rates, so they are not comparable with the other rates on this page. The OECD figures are in US dollars at constant purchasing power.

Alberta's real GDP per person peaked in 2014 at $83,797^source (in 2017 dollars). By 2024 it was $75,017^source, down 10.5%^source.

Most of that fall came during the 2015-16 oil-price collapse, when output per person dropped 9.6%^source in two years. But it fell again in 2023 and 2024, by 1.3%^source and 1.5%^source, even though Alberta's economy grew 2.5%^source and 3.0%^source in those years. The population grew faster: 3.9%^source, then 4.6%^source.

Alberta still produces about 26%^source more per person than Canada as a whole. For 2025, Statistics Canada's first estimate, by industry, has Alberta's economy growing 2.7%^source and its population 2.5%^source, so output per person was roughly flat^source.

A “technical recession” usually means real GDP falling for two quarters in a row. This is what Statistics Canada reported, release by release:

• August 29, 2025: real GDP fell 0.4%^source in the second quarter of 2025.
• November 28, 2025: it rose 0.6%^source in the third quarter.
• February 27, 2026: it fell 0.2%^source in the fourth quarter.
• May 29, 2026: “Real gross domestic product (GDP) was unchanged in the first quarter of 2026,”^source after a 0.2%^source decline in the fourth quarter. The levels in the agency's own table slipped 0.04%^source, which rounds to zero. CBC reported that Canada had “slipped into a technical recession on an annualized basis.”^source Global News called it a technical recession too^source.
• August 28, 2026: the first quarter was revised up to 0.1%^source growth, and the second quarter grew 0.8%^source.

On the numbers published in May, output fell in two quarters in a row: the agency rounded the second decline to zero, but its own levels went down. The August revision turned the first quarter into slight growth, so on current data the two declines are no longer back to back^sourcesource. Revised or not, the weaker number is output per person, which in mid-2026 was still below its 2022 peak^sourcesource.

Ottawa's federal debt, its accumulated deficit, is the gap between everything it owes and everything it owns. It doubled^source in ten years, from $628.9 billion^source in March 2015 to $1,266.5 billion^source in March 2025. More than half of the increase came in one year^source: the 2020-21 pandemic deficit of $327.7 billion^source.

Per person, the federal debt went from $17,663^source to $30,521^source, up 73%^source. After inflation it rose 33%^source, while real GDP per person rose 4.4%^source.

Today's estimate on the live debt counter →

Question 1^source on the October 19, 2026^source ballot asks whether the Government of Alberta should take more control over immigration to bring it down to more sustainable levels, favour economic migrants and give Albertans first priority for new jobs. Parliament's budget officer projected that Ottawa's 2025-2027 immigration cuts would mean a smaller economy but more output per person by 2027^source.

What it costs, and who pays: Alberta's immigration referendum →

The case for Question 10: The Case →

Every number links to its source, and figures we calculated (shares, per-person amounts, ratios) show their formula on the sources page. Statistics Canada revised its population estimates on September 23, 2026; this page uses that release. All sources for this page →

Alberta's immigration referendum: who pays the bill →

What do you pay? Try the 2026 tax calculator →