Montréal, March 18, 2019 – To mark a decade of research into the issue of productivity in Quebec, the Centre for Productivity and Prosperity – Walter J. Somers Foundation (CPP) is pleased to release the tenth edition of Productivity and Prosperity in Quebec – Overview. “This overview was originally intended to alert decision-makers to the challenge of productivity and its impact on Quebec’s economic prosperity,” explains CPP Director Robert Gagné. “Back then, there was serious cause for concern: after 30 years of particularly lethargic productivity growth, a wide gap had opened up in terms of economic prosperity between Quebec and the main Western economies. Since then the political discourse has evolved, but the same basic problem remains: because it hasn’t improved its productivity, Quebec is still having trouble generating wealth.”
The result is that even today the findings of the 2018 Overview are still cause for concern. For all practical purposes, labour productivity has flatlined over the past four years, posting average annual growth of barely 0.1%. In short, the new government faces a considerable challenge.
