The government has been lying to us as a nation for a very long time, or perhaps we have been too naive to really question our status in the international community. No one is quite certain which one is true, but perhaps by the end of this article it will become apparent that we as Canadian citizens are living a lie. Canada might not be the perfect First World Country that we have been lead to believe, but rather we may be living in the upper class of Second World Countries.
The notion that we are on the same international playing field as other powerhouse nations is incredibly inaccurate. I am sure that the government will become unwilling to give in over the subject, but they have been inducing the foundation that the lies stand on. Canada is the only“First World Country”that still relies heavily on the exportation of staple products. Harold Innis was the first to prove this theory, looking at the fur trade as his main support. Innis coined the idea of“Canada as a staple economy,”which refers to the natural resources upon which Canada has become so greatly dependent. British Columbia with their lumber, Alberta with their oil, Saskatchewan has their wheat production and so on and so forth. Where does Canada begin to make a profit?
No country can rely on natural resources as a form of economic independency. There is just no way to have a stable economy flourish on the whim of a natural resource. The real question at hand is why a resource-based economy is poorer than that of a production country. I guess the quick answer to this is the idea that if you export the raw you must import the finished, therefore it costs more to inherently keep the economy afloat. Although I do not have a degree in economics and I could be entirely off base, it seems like a simple idea: The more you manufacture, the more the cost for goods will go up.
The next issue that needs to be addressed is the service-based economy of Ontario. The only province that fails to export mass amounts of resources instead has become a service-based economy. However, many people have been falsified into thinking that Ontario is the wealthiest province. The only issue with this strand of thought is the fact that Ontario is asking for bailouts, as its service-based economy is slowly failing. If you need an example, look no further then RIM, a waterloo based Research Company, which is currently wondering where it went wrong. This is only one example of the slow die out of the Ontario service sector.
Truthfully, whether you believe it or not, Canada is based on a staple economy. We need to find a way to expand and shift what we believe is our amazing economy. Yes, Canada has been doing immensely well on the world stage, but not as an international power. But Canada is not an international powerhouse, we are merely the Boy Scouts to the rest of the world, doing the best we can and exporting as much as we can in hopes that someone will keep our economy going. Canada for the foreseeable future will be a Staple economy, thus relegating it to a Second World Country. It’s time to stop kidding ourselves and accept the title. Besides, I am not worried about a simple title.