What is Canada’s strongest feature on the global economic stage? We don’t have the largest population on the planet. We don’t have the biggest GDP. We aren’t a financial powerhouse and we don’t have the smartest or most economically astute government.
Unfortunately, the current federal government tends to regard the natural-resource sectors as relics from the past and even as environmental liabilities. It gets away with this negative posture because Canada’s increasingly urban population does not fully recognize how many urban jobs and incomes are actually dependent on the health and performance of the rural-based natural resource sectors – agriculture, energy, mining, forestry, and fisheries.
The same can be said for all the other natural resource sectors – energy, mining, forestry, and fisheries – each of which also have manufacturing, service, and knowledge subsectors built upon their producing foundations. And where are the majority of the jobs and incomes produced by these natural resource subsectors located? In the towns and cities of urban Canada.