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It’s less clear what is happening with investment.

There is reason to think the combination of a devastating global recession and a separate collapse in oil prices this decade has severely crippled Canada’s ability to compete. The global economy has been firing on all cylinders for more than a year, and yet the only Canadians who seem to have been able to take advantage are drillers, farmers and miners. A separate StatCan report on April 7 showed the value of exports increased 1.5 per cent in February from a year earlier. That figure flatters the country’s exporters, as the increase is based mostly on higher commodity prices; adjusted for inflation, non-energy exports of goods declined, as they have fairly consistently since 2016 when calculated in those terms, according to research by RBC Capital Markets.

Ottawa and the provincial capitals should be seized by this failure; we call ourselves a trading nation, yet we’re being knocked out of all of our traditional markets by a growing list of rivals.

The Bank of Canada has done what it can, but at a serious cost: record levels of household debt and inflated house prices in the country’s major cities. Nevertheless, Canada’s political leaders mostly have been content to leave management of the economy to the central bank. They should be aware that Poloz is running out of reasons to compensate for the failures with ultra-low borrowing costs.

Gross domestic product is on track to grow at an annual rate of about one per cent in the first quarter, and RBC’s economists predict growth in 2018 of 1.9 per cent, compared with 3 per cent last year.

But even that slower rate is quite a bit stronger than the Bank of Canada estimates the economy can handle without overheating. Before too long, policymakers will have to move to contain inflation. Don’t be angry at them when they do because they only will be doing their jobs. If the economy falters without crutches, it will be because others failed to do theirs.

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