Canada's Economic Future

post-war economy, in contrast to conditions prevailing in 1939, is characterized by: (i) a marked increase in production and productive capacity; (ii) an increased working force, with relatively little seasonal or other unemployment in that force. Canada's population has been increasing recently at approximately double the pre-war projected rate; (iii) persistent inflationary pressures. The volume of Canada's production is now about 75 per cent higher than in 1939. There is much fuller use of pre-war productive capacity, plus a considerable increment of new plant and equipment. New investment, particularly during the period 1946-48, has been largely directed towards the output of domestic consumer goods. Some has been dependent on imports; relatively little has been related to the export industries. Underlying causes of high post-war production and employment include: war and ordinary expenditures of governments; an exceptionally high export demand, though this is now being limited by uncertainties as to markets and payments, by continuing export, import, and exchange controls; the intensity of internal demand, stimulated by wartime savings, compulsory and otherwise, as well as by a backlog of demand which an industry geared to war could not satisfy; and a record level of investment expenditure. A number of these factors, upon which the present high level of production and employment depend, are today disappearing from the Canadian scene. Military expenditures of the Dominion government have now returned to peacetime proportions, albeit at a level eight or more times those of the immediate pre-war

Agricultural economics · Dominion · Economic policy · Economics · Economy · Investment (military · Macroeconomics · Market economy · Peacetime · Political science · Population · Production (economics · World War II · Canadian Policy and Governance

• Almost but Not Quite

  Michael Hart•The American Review of Canadian…•1989

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