Know Your Bread And Butter

Looks like Vermont knows how to play smart business. We visited Burlington today - this ain't your mother's Burlington anymore - and Church St. was decked out with Quebec flags for its June 24 provincial holiday.

And why not? Quebec is a huge regional market so Vermont is only tapping into our cash.

Of course, we rely just as much on American capital - actually, far more - but I doubt Montreal would ever litter one of its streets with American flags on the 4th of Joo-lie.

In any event, Canadian flags are far and few between on July 1 here.

Whatever. I dug up the GDP output for states and provinces that trade in the region. Quebec-Maritimes-Ontario-New England-New York form a rather formidable economic block. With a total population of roughly 54 million and GDP output of about $2.5 trillion (which is larger than all of Canada interestingly enough).

Here's the breakdown:

Massachusetts: $365 billion, population 6.5 million.
New York: $1.144 trillion, population 19.3.
Vermont: $25 billion, population 625 000.
New Hampshire: $60 billion, population 1.3 million.
Maine: $50 billion, 1.3 million.
Rhode Island: $47 billion, 1 million.
Connecticut: $216 billion, 3.5 million.

Nova Scotia: $37 billion, 948 000.
Quebec $345 billion, 7 million.
Ontario $655 billion, 13.3 million.

New York is clearly the gorilla in the hall. Of the 'Big five' Quebec has the lowest per capita output.

Figures from econopost.