IMF says oil exports aren’t so key to Canada’s economic future after all

Posted on April 3, 2014 in Debates

TheGlobeandMail.com – ROB/Commentary/ROB Insight
Apr. 03 2014.   Andrew Jackson

We are told on a daily basis that approval of new pipelines to export oil and gas are central to Canada’s economic future. Sober economic analysis suggests these claims are rather exaggerated.

A recent International Monetary Fund study of energy development in Canada finds that further expansion of investment and exports would indeed be, on balance, an economic plus. But the report also shows that outside of the energy sector and the producing provinces, the positive impacts of additional exports are surprisingly modest.

The IMF notes that the oil and gas sector now supports 23 per cent of private non-housing investment in Canada and 26 per cent of Canadian merchandise exports, up from 15 and 14 per cent, respectively, in 2000.

They study judges the overall economic impact of a growing primary energy sector to have been positive. However, it also notes that there have been negative as well as positive impacts, and that “higher energy prices contributed to the real appreciation of the Canadian dollar since the early 2000s, which has intensified Canada’s competitiveness challenges in non-energy sectors, particularly in manufacturing.”

The direct impacts of higher oil and gas production on gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past decade have been minuscule, adding just 0.1 percentage points to the overall annual growth rate, and creating just 1.7 per cent of all new jobs.

But the IMF does document spillover effects on sectors such as engineering, construction and finance that provide services to the energy sector (so-called backward linkages), and on sectors such as refining that add value to primary energy products (so-called forward linkages). At the same time, however, part of the boost to GDP is lost to imported inputs.

Over all, the IMF calculated that the oil and gas sector accounted for one-third of cumulative GDP growth between 2007 and 2013.

The study then models the impacts of future energy sector expansion, using a “no capacity restraint” scenario, which sees production increasing significantly (by 20 per cent) as new oil sands and liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects move to production and export capacity increases.

Overall Canadian GDP would be 2 per cent higher in 10 years under this scenario, meaning that growth would be boosted by less than 0.2 per cent a year. The trade balance would, however, fall slightly, due to appreciation of the Canadian dollar, and increased Canadian supply would lower North American energy prices.

Conversely, Canadian GDP would be just 0.5 per cent lower in 10 years in a “segmented market” scenario, in which energy exports grow only very slowly due to significant capacity constraints.

The gap between the two scenarios is more modest than one might have thought. What is even more surprising, though, is the weakness of the positive linkages of oil and gas development to the Canadian economy outside of the producing provinces.

The IMF estimates, based on 2009 input-output data, that a $1 increase in investment in the energy sector in Alberta boosts Canadian GDP by 89 cents. Of that amount, 82 cents will be in Alberta itself. The investment would boost Ontario’s GDP by just 4 cents, all the other provinces by 3 cents.

The linkages from the oil and gas sector to Canadian manufacturing are very weak, “suggesting limited spillovers,” as the IMF drily notes. A $1 increase in energy investment in Alberta is calculated to boost Canadian manufacturing GDP by just 3 cents, with most of the impact being in Alberta itself.

The IMF argues that “there appears to be an important scope to increase inter-industry linkages across Canada that would lead to wider sharing of benefits from the energy sector.” Domestic supply chains could be deepened so that manufacturing and service firms outside Western Canada capture a larger share of the inputs purchased by the energy sector.

They also emphasize that there is significant potential for domestic as opposed to export pipelines to be built, so that oil from Western Canada can displace imported oil used by refiners in Eastern Canada. This would not only boost Canada’s trade balance, it would also lower domestic energy prices, and thus benefit the manufacturing sector and the wider economy.

While the IMF does not say so, the study suggests that there is much more to a sound energy policy for Canada than building pipelines for export. Deepening economic linkages within Canada is certainly key to wider sharing of the benefits of further energy development.

Andrew Jackson is the Packer Professor at York University and senior policy adviser to the Broadbent Institute.

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