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Put another way, the lost wealth amounts to an additional $5,000 per Canadian each year for the past 25 years. For you politicians out there, that’s the return on keeping your regulatory thicket trimmed, your tax rates competitive and your subsidies targeted. For executives, that’s the money you leave on the table by putting the next quarter ahead of the next decade.

“We all know that we could be more productive,” Wilkins said in a speech at the Economic Club of Canada. “Canada trails many other advanced economies on indicators that we know increase productivity and the competitiveness of our businesses.”

Public appearances by members of the Bank of Canada’s policy committee are headline events again because interest-rate cuts are back on the table after the central bank in January cut its forecast for economic growth.

Wilkins offered no clues on where borrowing costs are headed in the months ahead. Those came from Statistics Canada, which published new trade data that reinforced the central bank’s downbeat outlook for 2020, while backing Wilkins’ argument that Canada could be setting itself up for a lacklustre future.

Non-energy exports of merchandise goods increased 0.4 per cent in December from the previous month, Statistics Canada reported. That’s an improvement on recent results, but still poor by historical standards, reflecting the toll the trade wars have taken on global demand. The average monthly increase dating back to 1988 is 0.4 per cent.