Canada

As an affluent, high-tech industrial society in the trillion-dollar class, Canada resembles the US in its market-oriented economic system, pattern of production, and affluent living standards. Since World War II, the impressive growth of the manufacturing, mining, and service sectors has transformed the nation from a largely rural economy into one primarily industrial and urban. The 1989 US-Canada Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (which includes Mexico) touched off a dramatic increase in trade and economic integration with the US, its principal trading partner. Canada enjoys a substantial trade surplus with the US, which absorbs about three-fourths of Canadian exports each year. Canada is the US’s largest foreign supplier of energy, including oil, gas, uranium, and electric power. Given its great natural resources, skilled labor force, and modern capital plant, Canada enjoyed solid economic growth from 1993 through 2007. Buffeted by the global economic crisis, the economy dropped into a sharp recession in the final months of 2008, and Ottawa posted its first fiscal deficit in 2009 after 12 years of surplus. Canada’s major banks, however, emerged from the financial crisis of 2008-09 among the strongest in the world, owing to the country’s tradition of conservative lending practices and strong capitalization. During 2010, Canada’s economy grew only 3%, because of weak exports.

$1.335 trillion (2010 est.)

$1.297 trillion (2009 est.)

$1.33 trillion (2008 est.)

$1.564 trillion (2010 est.)

3% (2010 est.)

-2.5% (2009 est.)

0.5% (2008 est.)

$39,600 (2010 est.)

$38,700 (2009 est.)

$40,000 (2008 est.)

18.59 million (2010 est.)

8% (2010 est.)

8.3% (2009 est.)

10.8%; note - this figure is the Low Income Cut-Off (LICO), a calculation that results in higher figures than found in many comparable economies; Canada does not have an official poverty line (2005)

32.1 (2005)

31.5 (1994)

22.1% of GDP (2010 est.)

82.9% of GDP (2010 est.)

82.5% of GDP (2009 est.)

1.6% (2010 est.)

0.3% (2009 est.)

0.5% (31 December 2009)

1.75% (31 December 2008)

2.4% (31 December 2009 est.)

4.73% (31 December 2008 est.)

$560.8 billion (31 December 2010 est)

$470.9 billion (31 December 2009 est)

$1.469 trillion (31 December 2010 est.)

$1.144 trillion (31 December 2009 est.)

$2.963 trillion (31 December 2010 est.)

$2.606 trillion (31 December 2009 est.)

$1.681 trillion (31 December 2009)

$1.002 trillion (31 December 2008)

$2.187 trillion (31 December 2007)

wheat, barley, oilseed, tobacco, fruits, vegetables; dairy products; forest products; fish

transportation equipment, chemicals, processed and unprocessed minerals, food products, wood and paper products, fish products, petroleum and natural gas

5.8% (2010 est.)

620.7 billion kWh (2007 est.)

536.1 billion kWh (2007 est.)

55.73 billion kWh (2008 est.)

23.5 billion kWh (2008 est.)

3.289 million bbl/day (2009 est.)

2.151 million bbl/day (2009 est.)

2.001 million bbl/day (2008 est.)

1.192 million bbl/day (2008 est.)

175.2 billion bbl

161.3 billion cu m (2009 est.)

94.62 billion cu m (2009 est.)

94.67 billion cu m (2009 est.)

16.59 billion cu m (2009 est.)

1.754 trillion cu m (1 January 2010 est.)

-$40.21 billion (2010 est.)

-$38.08 billion (2009 est.)

$406.8 billion (2010 est.)

$323.3 billion (2009 est.)

motor vehicles and parts, industrial machinery, aircraft, telecommunications equipment; chemicals, plastics, fertilizers; wood pulp, timber, crude petroleum, natural gas, electricity, aluminum

US 75.02%, UK 3.37%, China 3.09% (2009)

$406.4 billion (2010 est.)

$327.3 billion (2009 est.)

machinery and equipment, motor vehicles and parts, crude oil, chemicals, electricity, durable consumer goods

US 51.1%, China 10.88%, Mexico 4.56% (2009)

$NA (31 December 2010 est.)

$54.36 billion (31 December 2009 est.)

$1.009 trillion (30 June 2010)

$781.1 billion (31 December 2008)

$528.7 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

$494.6 billion (31 December 2009 est.)

$602.5 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

$576.2 billion (31 December 2009 est.)

Canadian dollars (CAD) per US dollar - 1.0346 (2010), 1.1431 (2009), 1.0364 (2008), 1.0724 (2007), 1.1334 (2006)