I’m writing this week’s Weekly Wrap while on a family trip to Spain, the country that famously popularized the mid-afternoon siesta. It’s a wonderful place to visit, but Spain’s nominal GDP per capita is barely $38,000 USD, which is about one-third lower than Canada’s and less than half of America’s.

Prime Minister Mark Carney was also in Europe this week. On the margins of a meeting with his European counterparts, he declared that “the international order will be rebuilt—but it will be rebuilt out of Europe.” He also described Canada as the “most European of non-European countries.”

The implicit assumption behind these comments is that Europe represents a successful and perhaps even ascendant economic and political model. Yet on most measures that matter—incomes, productivity, technological leadership, demographic vitality, and growth—the continent has been losing ground for years. It’s hard to see how Europe could rebuild the world when it’s struggling to maintain its own historic claim to prosperity.

Europe isn’t poor. But it’s poorer than Canada and significantly poorer than the United States. On a comparable nominal GDP per capita basis (based on current U.S. dollars rather than purchasing-power adjustments), the IMF estimates the European Union at roughly $50,000 USD, Canada at about $58,000 USD, Germany at about $64,000 USD, France at about $52,000 USD, Italy at about $46,000 USD, and the United States at approximately $93,000 USD.

That distinction matters. Purchasing-power adjustments are useful for comparing living standards. But the future international order won’t be financed in purchasing power parity-adjusted lifestyle metrics. It will be financed in real capital, real technology, real energy production, and real corporate scale. And on those measures, Europe increasingly looks diminished.

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Canada should not emulate Europe, despite Prime Minister Carney’s suggestion that Canada is the “most European of non-European countries.” Europe’s declining economic performance, particularly in productivity, technological leadership, and capital formation, especially compared to the United States, is particularly troubling. Europe’s focus on regulation and redistribution over wealth creation has resulted in fewer globally dominant technology firms and weaker venture capital investment. Canada should instead focus on its North American identity, leveraging trade, integration, and access to the U.S. economy to maintain its prosperity, rather than adopting a European model of managed decline.