Fraser Institute News Release: Nova Scotia's private sector underperforms the rest of the country?ranks last among all Canadian provinces in private sector investment

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, June 30, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nova Scotia ranks last among all Canadian provinces in per person private sector investment?a key driver of higher living standards and increased prosperity?finds a new study published by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

"For most of recent history, there has been a prosperity gap between Atlantic Canada and the rest of Canada, and part of closing this gap is for the region to have a healthy private sector," said Alex Whalen, policy analyst at the Fraser Institute and co-author of The State of Markets in Atlantic Canada.

The study?which measures private markets in Atlantic Canada?finds that private markets in the Maritimes generally underperformed those in the rest of Canada.

Nova Scotia ranked 7^th on small business start-ups, a key measure of entrepreneurship.

Government spending (including federal, provincial and local) as a share of the overall economy was the highest in Nova Scotia at 60.2 per cent in 2019 (the most recent year of available data prior to the COVID-19 pandemic) compared to the other provinces.

Nova Scotia's private sector employment relative to total employment ranked 6^th at 63.6 per cent. All four Atlantic provinces had below-average shares of private sector employment as a share of total employment in 2019.

"One of the clear limitations to greater prosperity and higher living standards in Nova Scotia is its underperforming private sector," Whalen said.

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Alex Whalen, Policy Analyst
Fraser Institute

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The Fraser Institute is an independent Canadian public policy research and educational organization with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal and ties to a global network of think-tanks in 87 countries. Its mission is to improve the quality of life for Canadians, their families and future generations by studying, measuring and broadly communicating the effects of government policies, entrepreneurship and choice on their well-being. To protect the Institute's independence, it does not accept grants from governments or contracts for research. Visit www.fraserinstitute.org