Since 2003, the World Bank publishes the Ease of Doing Business (EDB) Index aimed at measuring the regulatory efficiency and institutional quality of key processes that affect the business environment in a given economy. While highly influential, particularly in the developing world, the EDB has also been faced with criticism and at times controversies. In 2020, the World Bank decided to interrupt temporarily the publication of the EDB report as a result of an audit that revealed politically motivated manipulation of EDB rankings.
Over time, Canada’s relative rankings fell from 4th in 2007 to 23rd in 2020 with no significant changes in its business environments or policies. Canada’s rank fall can only be partially explained as other economies such as Georgia and Mauritius surpassed Canada with higher overall rankings.
To understand the underlying causes of Canada’s rank declining, the Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) commissioned a study to look at Canada’s performance in all 10 areas of the EDB Index. The study also looked at other competitiveness and economic freedom indices (e.g. IMD World Competitiveness Index, World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness report and the Fraser Institute Index of Economic Freedom) and found no such decline in Canada`s performance.