Canada’s Economy: Worth Envy, Driven by Economic Freedom

Canada’s economy is receiving some good publicity these days. For starters, check out this recent article from the Associated Press.

While the Canadian banking system receives a great deal of praise in the article, late in the piece there is a brief mention of “slashed spending…and spending cuts,” but one unspoken, major, piece of the puzzle relating to Canada’s improving economy must be the increasing economic freedom of its citizens. According to the most recent Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, Canada is now more economically-free than the United States! Yes, Canada. Check out the top-10 most economically-free nations here.

According to the rankings, Canada beats the US in: “Business Freedom,” “Fiscal Freedom,” “Financial Freedom,” “Property Rights,” and “Corruption.” It will be interesting to see if Canada seizes upon its current momentum and moves towards additional reforms and whether the US is able to turn things around and move back toward “Economically Free” instead of falling further down to “Mostly Free.”