{"id":235723,"date":"2025-10-24T01:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T01:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/235723\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T01:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T01:01:08","slug":"can-canada-really-double-non-u-s-exports-in-a-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/235723\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Canada really double non-U.S. exports in a decade?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Mark Carney set a goal for Canada to double its non-U.S. exports in the next decade, saying American tariffs are causing a chill in investment.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n

In the fall of 2018, the federal government set a goal of increasing overseas exports by 50 per cent by 2025 in a bid to reduce Canada\u2019s longstanding overreliance on the U.S. market. <\/p>\n

It reached that goal last year<\/a>, with the value of non-U.S. trade hitting $296-billion compared to $195-billion seven years before, thanks in large part to a surge in oil and gold exports, alongside a jump in foreign students from India studying in Canada, which is counted as a services export. <\/p>\n

Ottawa is now trying to repeat this trick \u2013 and then some. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a> said his government is aiming to double non-U.S. exports over the next decade, from around $300-billion to around $600-billion. With President Donald Trump upending continental trade, Canada needs to look to other markets for growth, he said. <\/p>\n

Whether Canada will be able to hit its goal this time around depends on a range of factors: foreign demand and competition, investment in infrastructure, and the ability to get commodities out of the ground in the first place.<\/p>\n

Opinion: Doubling non-U.S. exports is hard. Does Carney really have the courage for it?<\/a><\/p>\n

As recent experience shows, idiosyncratic factors such as the price of gold or the number of foreign students could make or break Canada\u2019s diversification hopes. <\/p>\n

By and large, governments don\u2019t trade \u2013 the private sector does. What Ottawa can do is change the playing field by investing in infrastructure (ports, roads, rail and pipelines), negotiating better market access with other countries, and nudging businesses and investors in one direction or another through taxes, regulations or direct support measures. <\/p>\n

For trade diversification to happen, Ottawa needs to focus on all three things simultaneously, said Marc-Andr\u00e9 Roy, co-CEO and managing partner of infrastructure consulting firm CPCS Transcom Ltd.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think just building more infrastructure is going to unleash a wave of new trade. It\u2019s got to be products that the world wants, first of all, and getting that stuff to market competitively,\u201d Mr. Roy said in an interview. <\/p>\n

So far, Ottawa has announced a $5-billion Trade Diversification Corridor Fund, aimed at building new trade infrastructure, and it has committed to fast-tracking \u201cnation building\u201d projects through its new Major Projects Office. An expansion of the Contrecoeur container terminal near Montreal and expansion of the liquified natural gas export terminal in Kitimat, B.C., are among the first batch of projects selected by the office. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

If Canadian companies are going to move far more products to the coasts, and out through ports, there will need to be a significant increase in both capacity and efficiency \u2013 all of which requires large capital investments.<\/p>\n

A pre-budget submission from the Association of Canadian Port Authorities said that Canada\u2019s ports have at least $10-billion in infrastructure needs, only 40 per cent of which have confirmed funding. The number could rise to as much as $21-billion through 2040, it said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Carney and his ministers have also been jetting around the world, trying to gin up business for Canadian companies. That includes getting Canadian companies included in European defence supply chains and striking deals around critical minerals. But many of these opportunities are at an early stage.<\/p>\n

Carlo Dade, director of International Policy at the University of Calgary\u2019s School of Public Policy, said the key to diversifying Canada\u2019s trade is building another oil pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast. That\u2019s something the Government of Alberta is advocating for, with push-back from the Government of British Columbia. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to double exports by volume, that\u2019s a different question. But if you want to double exports by value \u2026 you look at the big honking thing that you export by value, and if you simply move more of that, you\u2019ve diversified trade,\u201d Mr. Dade said. <\/p>\n

Canada to double non-U.S. exports over next decade, Carney says<\/a><\/p>\n

The rise in non-U.S. trade over the past decade was driven heavily by increased exports of energy products. Another key driver was gold, thanks to a stratospheric rise in prices.<\/p>\n

Gold accounted for close to 30 per cent of Canada\u2019s increase in non-U.S. exports from 2015 to 2024, an analysis of Statistics Canada data shows, with most of it going to the United Kingdom. The rise in precious metal prices has made it so gold and silver combined now match exports of cars and light trucks at around $58-billion, according Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter. <\/p>\n

A reversal or even stagnation in the price of gold over the next decade would crimp Canada\u2019s export picture.<\/p>\n

Travel services is another export sector that delivered a significant boost to Canada\u2019s non-U.S. exports over the last decade, and which may be difficult to replicate going forward.<\/p>\n

When a non-resident comes to Canada and spends money, that counts as a travel export. And the country has seen a surge of newcomers, with the temporary resident population more than doubling to 3.1 million between 2021 and 2024.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

As a result of that influx, Canada\u2019s travel exports soared 136 per cent to $61.3-billion between 2015 and 2023, the last year for which Statscan has data. India accounted for 35 per cent of that increase, with travel exports to India climbing from $984-million to $13.5-billion over that time. However, Canada has now capped the number of international student and temporary foreign worker permits, which will likely limit export growth.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Canada\u2019s trade diversification push will succeed or fail based on the decisions of thousands of companies, which have to choose between uncertain access to the massive market just to the south and taking a gamble on developing new markets.<\/p>\n

Canada has among the best access to international markets of any country. It has signed 15 free trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and a deal with the European Union. Ottawa just inked an agreement with Indonesia. But trade deals won\u2019t do much if companies don\u2019t take advantage of them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Mark Carney set a goal for Canada to double its non-U.S. exports in the next decade,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,8400,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-235723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-e-ny","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}