Canada’s national newspaper just published a headline that reads like satire but is not satire at all.
“How Canada became poorer than Alabama.”
That is not a social media jab. It is a serious feature in The Globe and Mail examining IMF data and economist Trevor Tombe’s calculations showing that, after adjusting for purchasing power, Canada’s per capita GDP briefly fell to roughly the same level as Alabama’s, and even slipped behind it.
The tone is clear from the start.
“For an ego check, The Globe and Mail travelled to the Deep South to understand how this happened. Immediately, it was obvious Alabama is misunderstood.”
Canada’s paper of record did not just cite IMF tables. It booked a flight.
Apparently, spreadsheets were not persuasive enough. The numbers required context. On-the-ground interpretation. A closer look at how a Southern state could have produced them at all.
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For decades, elite commentary has treated the American South as economically lagging and culturally stuck in the past. Alabama has often been shorthand for backward. So when the Globe dispatches a reporter to Rocket City to conduct a GDP comparison, the data are treated less as a routine economic fluctuation and more as a development that demands explanation.
At one point, the Globe writes:
“Canadians could probably stomach maintaining their living standards slip relative to the broader U.S., the epicentre of the world’s tech revolution. But Alabama?”
Silicon Valley fits the hierarchy. Alabama unsettles it.
Once the framing is set aside, the mechanics are straightforward. The Globe itself walks through what Alabama did differently. The state tightened incentive programs, imposed clawbacks when companies failed to deliver, and focused relentlessly on speed-to-market. Permits moved. Industrial sites were ready. Taxes were competitive. As one former state official put it:
“We felt like we could win most of the time based on having available sites, available work force, good business climate, low taxes and speed to market.”
There is nothing exotic about that formula. Lower friction. Faster approvals. Predictable rules. Capital tends to favor environments where projects do not stall in procedural limbo.
The Globe does not ignore Alabama’s weaknesses. It highlights income disparities, rural poverty, and gaps in life expectancy. It quotes economists who caution against obsessing over per capita GDP alone. Those caveats matter. They also do not change the competitive direction that prompted the trip in the first place.
“If Canadians remain complacent, the rest of the world will eat our lunch.”
That is not a slogan. It is an admission.
This is not a cultural rivalry story. It is a procedural one. Alabama reduced drag. Canada, in recent years, layered on regulatory complexity, housing distortions, and prolonged project timelines. When one jurisdiction shortens the path to breaking ground, and another lengthens it, the compounding effects show up in the numbers.
Capital does not respond to reputation. It responds to cost, speed, and predictability.
When a country’s leading newspaper flies to Huntsville for an ego check, the arithmetic has already spoken.
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