Looking through The Economist story on the outlook for consumer spending over the Christmas season, I came across this graph:
You’ll see every G-7 country there but one – Canada (okay, Japan’s not there either, but that’s because Christmas is less of a consumer spending season there). And you’ll also see forecasts for Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Belgium – whose combined GDP is about 20% less than that of Canada. This happens a lot in The Economist, and it generally annoys the heck out of me. What are we, chopped liver?
Sadly, yes. Even though Canada is one the the main destinations for migrants, we don’t do very well in attracting visitors. Why? Well, if you compare the raw data for the international travel balance to the seasonally-adjusted series, one explanation suggests itself immediately. The only time we have a positive balance is in the third quarter: July, August and September.
One of the effects of global warming might be to make Canada a more attractive place to visit. But there has to be a less drastic way of getting the attention of The Economist.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
I think this is, as you suggest, more to do with the Economist than anything else. I think it’s because they can’t distinguish us from the USA unfortunately. It does have an effect on my impression of the magazine as a whole. If you can’t distinguish one medium sized country from its big neighbour, why should I trust you to tell me what else is going on in the world?
Wasn’t it the Economist that was trumpeting Canada’s coolness a couple of years back? Or was that someone else? On the travel data: what’s the average inbound tourism, rather than net tourism? I could obviously be wrong, but I thought winter was a popular time to travel to Canada, precisely because of all the snow. Is it just Canadians fleeing the cold that make the net visitors numbers weaker in winter.
In a similar vein, I get annoyed when Canadian governments compare Canadian fiscal policy, say, only to G7 countries. Why not Australia (all round a very good comparison)/other OECD countries? Actually, I know the answer to this on fiscal policy, at least – Canada looks a whole lot more fiscally responsible relative to the G7 than to the OECD generally.