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Alberta led the decline in investment. Some of the weakness reflects the winding up of several oilsands projects that made investment there appear slightly better than it should have. Now that they’re complete and no new plants are coming, oilsands investment is at its lowest level on record, below even the worst of the 2009 recession. More revealing is that capital spending plans in the conventional oil and gas industry also show a significant decline of seven per cent, confirming the stories that drilling rigs are heading south to the more hospitable U.S. investment climate.

Investment plans in B.C.’s oil and gas industry also fell, as governments endlessly delay the approval of projects ranging from LNG terminals on the west coast to pipelines to export energy overseas. Instead of being a source of strength, spending on pipelines in Canada will fall by nearly $1 billion in 2018, which is a national disgrace. Meanwhile, investment spending by the oil and gas industry in the U.S. has been helping lead their recovery of business investment. As a result, the U.S. is poised to become the world’s largest oil producer in 2019 while Canadians are stuck endlessly and pointlessly debating the existential meaning of fossil fuels.

The steady erosion of business investment is a blanket condemnation of our policies

And in Central Canada, business investment, having declined last year, plans to stay there — flat. Firms remain reluctant to invest in Ontario, which is hardly surprising given the array of government policies that signal its indifference if not outright hostility to the business community. The only pockets of strength were government-directed increases in utilities and urban transit, which in Statcan’s classification appear in the business sector. Ontario’s total investment numbers were inflated by an 11-per-cent surge in government capital spending as the Wynne administration tries putting lipstick on Ontario’s investment pig during an election year. The Quebec government is adopting exactly the same tactic as it too prepares to face the electorate, proof that bribing people with their own money never goes out of political fashion. For the same reason, expect a sudden flood of federal government infrastructure investment in 2019.