Federal governments have for decades failed to reduce Canada’s dependence on U.S. trade, according to a new report, suggesting that Prime Minister Mark Carney faces an overwhelmingly steep climb in his effort to pivot the country away from its southern neighbour.
In a new report, the Fraser Institute studied the last 50 years of Canada’s trade diversification efforts, which included the signing of 16 free trade agreements with non-U.S. countries between 1988 and 2020. For all that work, however, Canada hardly increased its exports to non-U.S. trade partners, particularly in the last 25 years. Meanwhile, China — seemingly the sole benefactor from Canada’s diversification push — has gobbled up virtually all of what was diverted away from the U.S. in recent decades, the report found.
