With Tom Mulcair’s party ahead in the polls, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is focusing more on the NDP and its plans for Canada’s economy.

On Sunday, Harper took aim at NDP candidate Linda McQuaig’s comments on Alberta’s oilsands after McQuaig told the CBC’s Power and Politics that “a lot of the oilsands oil may have to stay in the ground” for Canada to meet its greenhouse-gas emissions targets.

“The NDP is consistently against the development of our resources and our economy. That’s why they have been a disaster wherever they’ve been in government and why they would wreck this economy if they ever got in, and why they must never get into power in this country,” Harper said in response.

To test Harper’s claim, iPolitics has compiled every provincial government’s economic performance from 1981 to 2013.

“Governments have at best a minor influence in the short and medium run; external factors beyond the control of governments are are almost always much more important,” cautions economist Stephen Gordon. “Governments should be evaluated based on the decisions they make, not on the outcomes observed while they happen to be in power.”

Harper’s charge, however, rests on these outcomes. Two metrics measure the parties’ performances: first, each province’s average annual GDP growth figures are listed in real terms, and, second, each year’s GDP growth is measured against Canada-wide GDP growth that year. The party in power on January 1 of any given year is counted as the party in power for the whole year.



The Progressive Conservatives and Liberals have taken turns at the helm in Newfoundland and Labrador since 1981. The province’s economy has performed better under the Liberals by a wide margin, although the data are skewed by breakneck economic growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s after the 1997 opening of the Hibernia oil field under Liberal premier Brian Tobin.



When measuring real GDP growth, the PCs come out on top in Prince Edward Island. But the PC years coincided with higher GDP growth across Canada, and Liberal governments — in power amid tougher national circumstances — have delivered better results relative to the rest of the country.



Nova Scotia is our first three-party contest, and the NDP’s performance ranks worst by both real and relative metrics. Average annual GDP growth under the NDP is less than half that under PC or Liberal governments, and the province fell behind the rest of the country by an average of 1.64 per cent per year during NDP premier Darrell Dexter’s time in office.



The PCs have outperformed the Liberals in New Brunswick. The province has lagged behind the rest of Canada under both parties, but the PCs’ record — despite shrinking GDP in 2012 and 2013 under PC premier David Alward — is better in real terms.

Lean years in the early 1990s, at the outset of Liberal premier Frank McKenna’s tenure, hurt the Grits’ record, although McKenna managed to turn the province’s economy around before stepping down in 1997.



The last three decades were not kind to Quebec. Neither the Liberals nor the Parti Québécois could keep the province’s economy at pace with the rest of Canada, although the Liberals have done a better job by our relative measure.

A national economic slowdown and the prospect of separation — no help to the province’s business environment — hampered the Liberals’ real figures through the late 1980s and early 1990s; perversely, the PQ reaped the rewards of a stronger Canada-wide economy in the late 1990s.



On the surface, Ontario is Harper’s Exhibit A. By our real-growth measure, the PCs come out on top by a mile, followed by the Liberals, while the NDP — during Bob Rae’s five-year tenure — posted dismal results.

It does not help the NDP that Canada’s economy did much better in the early 1990s than during PC premier Mike Harris’ two terms (1995-2002), but, given Ontario’s economic importance to the country, this could be a chicken-and-egg debate.

The province has fallen behind the rest of the country under Liberal premiers Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne, but the decline of the province’s manufacturing sector over the last decade could be either the result of provincial Liberal mismanagement or federal Conservative neglect.



Manitoba’s record belies Harper’s claim that the NDP has “been a disaster wherever they’ve been in government.” Between the PCs and the NDP, the latter has overseen better economic results in the province. The NDP’s relative results have also outpaced those delivered by the PCs.



For this analysis, we are classifying the centre-right Saskatchewan Party — founded in 1997 — as a PC or Conservative party. As in Ontario, the Saskatchewan Party and its PC predecessors have outperformed their opponents since 1981, and the NDP’s dismal record in the province bolsters Harper’s claim.



This one is easy. Until last spring, Alberta saw four decades of PC government, and there is little here to compare. Spurred by a booming resource sector, economic growth in PC-led Alberta outpaced growth in the rest of Canada by an average of 0.7 per cent a year from 1981 to 2013.



The B.C. Liberals — the province’s most right-wing major party since the collapse of Social Credit in 1991 — have delivered the best relative results, while the NDP’s real results are better. B.C. offers no clear answer to Harper’s charge of NDP mismanagement.

In the five provinces with NDP governments from 1981 to 2013, three — Nova Scotia, Ontario and Saskatchewan — saw markedly worse outcomes during their time in power. The numbers for British Columbia could point in either direction — but don’t look good on relative terms — and only Manitoba’s record favours the NDP.

The economic results delivered by PC and Liberal governments are generally more favourable. Based on this small sample, and with Gordon’s grain of salt, Harper’s claim stands.