When completed, Canada would have railways running from sea to sea. The nation, and its economy, would not have worked without them. However, building a railway with an all-Canadian route over the vast Canadian Shield would be tremendously difficult and expensive. To get this done, Canada again had to turn to foreign investment to help fund construction.
Over its first 20 years, Canada was routinely running current account deficits of between 7 and 10 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), financed by foreign borrowing. This was not a problem, of course, as the borrowing was being used to increase the economy’s capacity.