Here's how a U.S. government shutdown could impact Canadians

Economists warn both Canada's economy and individual Canadians could suffer from impacts of a U.S. government shutdown, and that those impacts will deepen and broaden the longer it lasts.

With the failure of U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's final effort to keep the government running, a shutdown is looking increasingly certain south of the border.

Economists warn both Canada's economy and individual Canadians could suffer from impacts of a U.S. government shutdown, and that those impacts will deepen and broaden the longer it lasts.

"Canada and the U.S. are tied at the hips, so even if we are not having a shutdown in Canada...when the U.S. coughs, Canada gets the flu," Andreas Schotter, professor of international business at Western University, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Friday.

The "flu," in this case, could feature symptoms like trade slowdowns, cross-border transportation slowdowns, stock market instability, flight disruptions, U.S. visa and work permit delays and, if the shutdown lasts long enough, increased food and fuel prices and other disruptions to the Canadian economy.

In a government shutdown, not every federal department and service goes dark. Instead, services and functions that are considered essential continue to run, while those considered not essential shut down.

How the shutdown impacts Canada will depend on which departments and services are deemed non-essential, and how time causes that list to grow, according to Chetan Dave, professor of economics at the University of Alberta.

"The longer this shutdown continues, what you start seeing is slowly bigger and bigger things are going to get stalled because they will be deemed to be non-essential," Dave told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Friday.