This October, the University of Calgary and the Government of Alberta are planning on holding a first-of-its-kind summit to address what has become a major issue for the national economy: productivity.

The summit will be hosted by the by UCalgary’s School of Public Policy on Oct. 16 and 17 at the BMO Centre, with the aim to connect researchers, business leaders, policymakers and government officials, as well as leading national economic commentators to share insights and potentially solutions to the productivity gap.

Speaking at the School of Public Policy on July 31, was Dr. Trevor Tombe, who highlighted the challenges that Canada has faced and why the summit was seen as essential to be held by both the university and the Government of Alberta.

“We’re not just lagging behind our own past performance. We’re lagging further and further behind other advanced economies. Today in Canada were nearly 30 per cent behind the United States, and that gap is widening. And the economic costs of this are enormous,” he said.

“We know there’s a problem the numbers speak for themselves. But the question is what Are we going to do about it how are we going to turn things around.”

Some of the challenges that have led to productivity lagging in Canada are the relatively decentralized nature of the nation, both politically and geographically.

“We do not just have one government we have thousands of governments, and part of our productivity challenge is ensuring that these governments… don’t operate in silos. Simple differences in rules, regulations, standards and certifications creates real friction to the national economy and Canada.”

“So there will be some challenges in terms of our productivity that are something that we can’t overcome, and it’s just a fact of our circumstance, but that gets you 10 per cent Behind the United States, not 30 per cent behind the United States.”

In terms of productivity performance, Dr. Tombe said that of the world’s advanced economies, Canada most resembled Spain.

“I think what will not come as a shock to anybody is that affordability challenges are very real. And we think about those, normally in terms of higher prices than used to be the case, but prices and income are together what determines the real affordability challenge.”

“So thinking about both sides of this challenge, income and prices, that does stretch our intuition a little bit.”

He said that the gap has been widening since the 1980s, with decades now of a fraction of a percent growth in productivity, and that the question has become “what do we do about it?”

“At the summit, we’ll explore the latest research, share best practices from business leaders and others, and chart a concrete roadmap for boosting productivity that will unveil in future research through the School of Public Policy. The summit will also be unique in its broad scope and scale.”

“And I think that’s necessary since solutions will go beyond any one area of expertise, go beyond any one sector of business or any one government, or indeed go beyond any one silver bullet reform that we might have in mind.”

Looking at the issues around infrastructure, transportation, intra-governmental relations, and internal trade would be among the topics that were likely to be discussed at the summit.

Minister of Finance and President of the Treasury Board Nate Horner said that the government was concerned about lagging productivity performance hampering the ability for the province to meet the demands of Albertans.

“Productivity is about how efficiently and effectively a country’s economy is producing goods and services, and it’s key determinate of wages, costs, and other components of increasing standards of living—which is why I’m very proud the Government of Alberta is providing support to this event.”

Not just economists, but also economists

Minister Horner said that he was making invitations to the finance ministers across the nation at the provincial and federal level to attend, and that the need to have conversations about the economy would transcend political differences.

"This isn't political. This is about what what we as Canadian policymakers want the future of our economy to be. It's about addressing problems and creating opportunity and prosperity for Canadians from coast to coast to coast."

"I think it is a challenge that will need to be addressed at every level of government. If you look at regulation, specifically, we've lived in silos a lot in the past and we do need to all pull the same direction."

Dr. Tombe said that the desire to include more than just economists in the conversation around productivity was part of the reason why the summit was structured into two days.

"The first day will be one that's focused more on policy that will include economists, of course, but not just economists. There'll be a lot of different focus areas from indigenous engagement, and how to work through infrastructure projects in a productive and efficient and effective way.

"There's advancing economic reconciliation, to education policy, to labor, mobility, and many other issues that are that are not just about economics. It'll draw in fields that go far beyond it."

Day two, he said, would have more sectoral focuses where the conversations will be led by experts who's industries have had productivity boosts that have impacted the entire economy.

"Think infrastructure, construction, and agriculture, where we can have leaders within those areas share experiences, insight, what works, what doesn't, and what's holding them back. All of that will feed into a few reports that we release following the summit, hopefully in the new year."

Already, said Dr. Tombe, a lot of research has been done into productivity but that structural issues in the economy related to areas like inflation have pressed the need for novel solutions.

"We have seen inflation at the levels that we saw it peak to in 2022 before, but not since the 1950s have we seen it accelerate as quickly as we have. And so there's scope for new and novel research insight to be be applied to the current moment to better understand why we're in the circumstance that we're in."

For more information on the summit, see spp.ucalgary.ca/school-public-policy/productivity-summit.