Dependence
Economy of Canada: captive
Canada lives on one buyer. Its routes to other buyers are closed; its defence and its data are held by the same power; its output per hour falls behind it.
Grounds
Canada depends on a single buyer.
Share of Canadian merchandise exports bought by the United States: 75.9 per cent in 2024, 71.7 per cent in 2025. Canadian exporters selling to the United States: 85.7 per cent.
Canada closed its own routes to every other buyer.
Northern Gateway, C$7.9 billion, to the coast of British Columbia: approval revoked by the federal government, 2016. Energy East, C$15.7 billion, Alberta to New Brunswick: withdrawn by TC Energy, 2017. Trans Mountain: bought by the state; cost estimate C$7.4 billion, final cost C$34 billion; in service 2024.
Pipeline & Gas Journal, March 2025 · CBC, Energy East · CBC, Trans Mountain
Canada refused to supply an ally in an energy crisis.
Joint press conference with the Chancellor of Germany, 22 August 2022. The Prime Minister of Canada on export of liquefied gas from the Atlantic coast: “there has never been a strong business case”.
Canada left its defence commitment unmet for eleven years; its choice of fighter remains undecided.
NATO members committed in 2014 to spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence. Canada: 1.01 per cent in 2014, 1.47 per cent in 2024; 2 per cent met for 2025 by the report of 26 March 2026. F-35: 16 aircraft under contract; the review opened in March 2025 has no completion date.
The defence data of Canada is subject to the law of a foreign state.
Over 80 per cent of cloud services in Canada run on foreign infrastructure. Defence 365 of National Defence runs with a United States provider; the CLOUD Act gives the United States access to data held on servers in Canada.
Control of the economy of Canada lies substantially abroad.
Foreign-controlled corporations: 27.5 per cent of operating revenue in 2017. Of that, under United States control: 55.4 per cent in 2016.
The productivity of Canada has fallen against the United States over four decades.
Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, 26 March 2024: labour productivity of Canada fell from 88 per cent of the United States level in 1984 to 71 per cent in 2022.