Canada's Global Competitiveness Challenge

A bstract . Any conclusions regarding Canada's competitiveness must be based on the criteria of total factor productivity rather than trade performance. The use of available data on merchandise export/import balance is misleading because merchandise trade , for instance, precludes trade in services. While trade performance criteria is less than sufficient in judging the competitiveness of Canada , close study of the total factor productivity criteria does not find evidence for the alleged “crisis of Canadian loss of competitiveness.”