{"id":293358,"date":"2016-03-21T17:13:52","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T21:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/2016\/03\/updating-trade-policy-firms-drive-canadian-trade\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T15:26:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T19:26:23","slug":"updating-trade-policy-firms-drive-canadian-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2016\/03\/updating-trade-policy-firms-drive-canadian-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Updating trade policy for the firms that drive Canadian trade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The latest <a href=\"https:\/\/irpp.org\/research-studies\/aots6-manley-kingston\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">commentary<\/a> in the IRPP\u2019s trade <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irpp.org\/research\/trade\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">volume<\/a> is from John Manley and Brian Kingston (of the Business Council of Canada), who bring a valuable perspective on trade from some of the largest businesses in Canada. They argue that an international commerce strategy that positions Canadian firms to take advantage of global markets will be central to securing our long-term prosperity, and they propose several areas for concrete policy actions, including launching bilateral trade talks with China.<\/p>\n<p>Large firms are the main drivers of Canada\u2019s international trade. Because they generally have more resources \u2014 such as: financing; management networks and partnerships; legal and linguistic supports, etc. \u2014 they\u2019re often the first movers into new markets. Large firms are much more likely to export:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/share-of-bus-that-exports.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-26578\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-26578\" src=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/share-of-bus-that-exports.png\" alt=\"share of bus that exports\" width=\"1024\" height=\"587\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And they contribute a disproportionate share of Canada\u2019s exports. For instance, despite accounting for just 3% of Canadian goods-exporting enterprises in 2014, large firms contributed almost three-quarters of the total value of exports:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/share-total-value.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-26580\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-26580\" src=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/share-total-value.png\" alt=\"share total value\" width=\"1024\" height=\"602\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Moreover, the top 10 Canadian goods exporters alone accounted for one-quarter of total export values, while the top 50 firms generated 55% of export values.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Canada-US challenges<br \/>\n<\/strong>Manley and Kingston identify Canada\u2019s declining competitiveness in the US market as a key policy challenge. They note that, in 2015 \u2014 for the first time in history \u2014 preliminary data show that US goods trade with China exceeded that of Canada-US goods trade ($598 billion vs. $576 billion). Among other policy fixes, they recommend streamlining market access between Canada and\u00a0the US by adopting a default policy of \u201calign or explain\u201d for Canada-US regulatory cooperation. This would allow Canada to maintain unique standards for health, safety and the environment, when a \u2018national interest\u2019 objective justifies maintaining a difference.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Implementing important trade deals<br \/>\n<\/strong>They argue to push ahead and implement the big outstanding trade deals that would improve Canadian market access abroad \u2014 namely CETA with the European Union; the Trans-Pacific Partnership; and to conclude long-drawn-out talks with India. Importantly, they say we need to develop a China strategy, and a key part of this would be to kick start bilateral trade talks. Finally, they show that the share of emerging markets in Canada\u2019s export mix remains underdeveloped, which suggests further efforts are needed to continue to diversify Canada\u2019s trade.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/export-orientation.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-26582\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-26582\" src=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/export-orientation.png\" alt=\"export orientation\" width=\"1024\" height=\"690\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You can read the full commentary is <a href=\"https:\/\/irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/AOTS6-manley-kingston.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>, which proposes several other policy recommendations, including unilateral tariff elimination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The latest commentary in the IRPP\u2019s trade volume is from John Manley and Brian Kingston (of the Business Council of Canada), who bring a valuable perspective on trade from some of the largest businesses in Canada. They argue that an international commerce strategy that positions Canadian firms to take advantage of global markets will be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":293354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[],"class_list":["post-293358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Updating trade policy for the firms that drive Canadian trade<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2016\/03\/updating-trade-policy-firms-drive-canadian-trade\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Updating trade policy for the firms that drive Canadian trade\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The latest commentary in the IRPP\u2019s trade volume is from John Manley and Brian Kingston (of the Business Council of Canada), who bring a valuable perspective on trade from some of the largest businesses in Canada. They argue that an international commerce strategy that positions Canadian firms to take advantage of global markets will be [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2016\/03\/updating-trade-policy-firms-drive-canadian-trade\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Policy Options\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/IRPP.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-21T21:13:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-28T19:26:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/trade-exports-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"vkurzawa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" 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