Thought of the Day - September 10 - BC's Economy

In these times it is difficult to comprehend how our economy is doing in absolute terms. As economies in all regions are affected it is much simpler to think about relative economic impact and recovery. The Conference Board of Canada has recently published a report that does just this, across the provinces. And what they have published says BC is less bad (only a 5.5% contraction this year) than most of the country; saying "British Colombia's economy is expected to outperform its provincial peers for the 2020-21 period".

Why is this you say? Could it be we have a diverse economic base? Could it be we flattened the curve and so had less severe restrictions than other provinces? Could it be our economy was doing better than most before the pandemic? While all these are probably factors, the main driver may surprise you - the CBoC states our better economic outlook is due to the fact "the province did not halt work on major energy projects, including LNG Canada's terminal in Northern BC".

Ah, there's the rub. This is a politically correct way to say a lot of the protests that were disrupting the delivery of major energy projects ceased and it is the investment in the exploitation of fossil fuels that is saving our bacon. Who-da' predicted that a year ago!

Cheers

Cliff

P.S. The BC gov't has always provided a quarterly report on all major projects here -> https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/employment-business/economic-development/industry/bc-major-projects-inventory/recent-reports but has stopped for 2020.

Thus the only report I could find was under the BC Oil & Gas Commission ->

https://www.bcogc.ca/what-we-regulate/major-projects/.