What Canada sells: Cars, crude, and canola

William Polushin is founding director of the Program for International Competitiveness at the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, and President of AMAXIS, an international business and operational development services firm.

In my last blog, I presented an overview of how exports fit into Canada's overall economy. I am going to start peeling the aggregate figures back to give a better understanding of Canada: The Trading Nation. This week, I will take a closer look at what we export.

From a product perspective, Canada's exports span several industries -- from agriculture and forestry to petroleum and natural gas to transportation equipment to financial services to travel. Not surprisingly, given the economic and industrial make-up of our country, the vast majority (approximately 85 per cent) of what we export are goods.

As highlighted in the following table, the top five exports in 2010 were crude oil, passenger cars, petroleum gases, gold, and personal travel. With the exception of personal travel, which is in deficit territory (thank you snowbirds), these exports are significant net positive contributors to Canada's GDP and are tied to either our primary resources or automotive sectors.

Read full article: The Globe and Mail, August 16, 2011