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● History
● The
Canada-US Free Trade Agreement
● Natural
Resources
● Agriculture
● Manufacturing
Industries
● Service
Industries
● Canada's
Place in the World Economy
Natural
Resources
 In
a resource-based economy, local social, political and cultural conditions
can all be heavily influenced by the nature of the livelihood
people participate in. This is partly owing to the way Canada was
settled: for example, by bringing people from the Ukraine in to
settle in farming regions, Ukrainian culture was partly transplanted
along with their farming skills, and in the relatively isolated
regions farmers settled, there was little opportunity for socializing
with "outsiders," and therefore such customs remained
relatively strong. In British Columbia at the turn of the century,
miners were brought in from the north of England and Scotland to
work in the coal mines, and they
had a highly developed trade union consciousness. Even
now, as a result, British Columbia's political and economic picture
continues to be greatly effected by trade union activity. Thus,
the politics and society of Canada are very much a product of their
economic base.
Canada
has vast amounts of fuel—oil, gas, coal, uranium
for nuclear power, water for hydroelectricity—and
these resources are a very important source of Canadian wealth.
However, as a huge, northern country,
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Long and Cold Winter
Days
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Canada
also has one of the highest per capita rates of energy consumption
in the world. Outside of large cities, where public transport
is available, not having a car can make life extremely isolated
and difficult. Houses and buildings require
heating through the long winter months. And great distances
between places means that transportation costs are high.
Canada's
energy resources are mainly located in sparsely populated, harsh
terrain,
which makes their extraction, development and transportation difficult.
Another difficulty is caused by the location of the consumers of
these resources. The highest population densities, and the location
of energy-eating manufacturing industries are in the eastern provinces
of Quebec and Ontario, often a very long way indeed from the origin
of the resources, which adds transportation costs. The development
of individual economic energy initiatives
is risky, difficult and expensive: whole towns have to be built
to service the workers and their families, often in hostile
isolated terrain.
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A Thriving and
Densely-Populated City
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A Sparsely-Populated
High Arctic Village
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But
the major problem, perhaps, is political, which demonstrates the
difficulties posed by Canada's federal system. Conflicts arise between
the provinces where resources are located—provincial government
fight to keep the money generated by their resources—and
the federal government, which has a "national" vision,
and wants to ensure national access to, and benefits from, such
resources.
The
potential for conflict is heightened by the east—west political
and economic division of the country. Western provinces resent having
their wealth siphoned
off to "benefit" the eastern provinces.
This
is particularly true of Alberta's resources. In 1947, major oil
and natural gas reserves
were discovered in this western, mainly agricultural province. When
oil prices skyrocketed
in 1973 and again in 1979, Alberta wanted to sell its bounty
at world prices. The federal government stepped in with a policy
that stabilized domestic prices and forced Alberta to sell to other
provinces at lower prices. Alberta resented this policy, which it
perceived as favouring the high consumers of resources in Quebec
and Ontario: that is, it favoured eastern Canada, causing additional
resentment between east and west.
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