Article content

Western Canada retook its lead in the country’s growth tables last year, with Alberta recording the fastest expansion among the 10 provinces and British Columbia posting its strongest pace in more than a decade.

Gross domestic product grew by 4.9 percent in Alberta, with the oil-producing province recovering from two straight years of falling output following the collapse of oil prices. The improvements follow two years in which the province’s main sectors were on the negative side of the chart.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Alberta leads provinces in economic growth in this new StatsCan GDP report Back to video

British Columbia’s economy expanded by 3.9 percent in 2017, the fastest pace for that province since 2005.

It’s a return to normal for Canada — Western provinces have outpaced central Canada in growth for much of the past 15 years until the oil price slump. But it was no reflection of any weakness in other parts of the country last year.

Canada’s economy in 2017 had one of its most broad-based expansions ever, with no region recording a deterioration and GDP rising in every province for the first time since 2011.

Quebec’s economy grew 3.1 percent in 2017, the strongest pace for that province since 2000 and twice its rate of growth in 2016. Ontario’s GDP rose 2.8 percent in 2017.

Nationally, Canada’s economy expanded 3.3 percent in 2017, according to the release, which is based on industry data. That’s slightly higher than the 3 percent pace recently reported by Statistics Canada under a different expenditure-based measure. Typically those two measures will converge following revisions.

Erik Hertzberg, Theophilos Argitis – Bloomberg News