The Global Affairs Series from The Business Monitor explores Canadian business leaders’ views on global affairs and Canada’s international trade relationships. This edition explored Canada’s dependency on the US economy and the potential for diversifying Canada’s international trade.
Key findings in this release:
- There is widespread concern about Canadian dependency on the US economy.
- While a large majority would like to see the Canadian international trade more diversified beyond the US, few are confident in the possibility.
Fully three-quarters of Canadian business leaders say Canada is too dependent on the US economy.
This result is consistent across all types and sizes of Canadian enterprises.
A large majority of Canadian business leaders want greater diversification outside the US economy.
Almost as many companies who think Canada is too dependent on the US economy, also think Canada needs to diversify its international trade outside the United States.
While this finding is also remarkably consistent across different business types, those in manufacturing are the least supportive of diversification (46% vs. 35% greater diversification vs. integration, respectively).
Few business leaders are confident in Canada’s ability to diversify its trade beyond the United States.
Just one-quarter are confident that Canada can increase its international trade with Africa, South America, Asia and Easter Europe.
This is generally consistent across different types of enterprises. The lone exception is business in Quebec where a quarter say it is “not at all” possible.
Discussion
Since 2010, the level of Canada’s international trade with the United States – whether imports or exports – is remarkably consistent.
It is widely held that the Canadian economy is too dependent on the US for good reason. Largely unavoidable for historic and geographic reasons, it is also viewed as something of an economic weakness.
A strong majority of business leaders say Canada needs to diversify its international trade beyond the US. And yet relatively few are confident in Canada’s ability to do so. What might spur or enable greater global diversification is difficult to say. This will be explored in future editions on the Business Monitor’s Global Affairs Series
Methodology
These results come from the latest edition of The Business Monitor which is powered by the Modus Business Panel – the only purpose-built, 100% probability-based business panel in Canada.
Because the Modus Business Panel is built entirely using random probability sampling, it is valid to cite the margin of error for this survey. The survey is based on a representative sample of 886 Canadian enterprises and has a margin of error of +/- 3.3% points, 95 times out of 100. The survey data was collected from February 14 to March 3 and is weighted by enterprise size and region based the latest Statistics Canada data.
