Just to close on the first question if I may, what I'm suggesting in that line that you quoted to me is that I believe the energy sector in Alberta continues to adjust to the previous decline in oil prices, from the $100 range to the $50 to $60 range. This is showing up in lower wage settlements and downward pressure on commercial real estate as well as residential real estate. Those adjustments, by our models, take three to five years to complete and they're still in train. That's just a reminder that we haven't fully adjusted to all that. I'm not trying to argue that our current conditions don't matter.
As for the U.S.-led trade war, it's giving rise to downgrades in investment intentions in about 47 countries. That's not a coincidence, 47 countries have experienced the same slowdown at exactly the same time in the fourth quarter of 2018. The mechanism that does this is business sentiment, and that too can be verified through surveys of business sentiment. Investment intentions have gone down across a wide swath of countries because of the uncertainty about the future of the global trading system. That is the primary channel that we are monitoring in Canada as an effect.
Going back to trade itself, it's a much more complex question: What direct effects are tariffs having? That is direct effects. Our staff have done all the hard labour around that, and we estimate it's only taken about 0.4 percentage points off of global growth so far. That's the direct effect on trade. Of course, it's distorting trade. It's making some trade categories go up a lot and others go down a lot. It's really not possible to think of that as having that effect on 47 countries, because that's a jumble. The one thing we have in common is weak investment, and I believe it's because of the uncertainty that the trade war raises.