Posthaste: This province's growth plunged and it's still whomping the rest of Canada

financialpost.com:

Alberta has been a powerhouse in Canada since the pandemic, with country-beating growth and a housing market that has stood strong while others slumped under the weight of higher interest rates.

But an “interesting divergence” emerged in recent gross domestic product data for the provinces, says Charles St-Arnaud, chief economist at Alberta Central.

After leading Canada with 5.3 per cent growth in 2022, economic activity in this province slowed to 1.5 per cent in 2023, missing forecasts by a percentage point.

Growth was higher than Canada’s 1.2 per cent showing, but just about the middle of the pack for the provinces, said St-Arnaud in a recent note.

And when you look at GDP per capita, Alberta’s performance is one of the weakest, declining 2.2 per cent in 2023, compared to 1.5 per cent for Canada as a whole.

Only Newfoundland declined more, dropping 3.7 per cent.

The fall in per capita growth partly reflects the surge in population Alberta saw last year, its strongest rise since 1982.

But it’s also the result of a decline in investment in the province that has been whittling away at the so-called “Alberta Advantage” since 2015.

“Alberta’s performance relative to the rest of the country is closely linked to the investment cycle in the province, with Alberta’s income outperforming the rest of the country when investment as a share of GDP rises and underperforming when it shrinks,” said St-Arnaud.

For years now, Alberta’s economy has not been experiencing the booms seen in the past when oil prices were high.

The reasons for this, St-Arnaud explains in an earlier study, is that a larger share of oil revenues are being returned to shareholders, leaving a smaller share to be reinvested in operations in the province.

Last year