McRobert McRobert:
I agree to a point. I think if the shit hits the fan we may need to really work our asses off on developing new technologies that can be implemented and sold world wide. That will be the key to overcoming an American market crisis. Inovation is where it is at as far as I am concerned.
Canada has been an inovator in many areas including the oil patch. Our economy is reliant on the US mostly due to geography. The majority of our population is within 200 miles of the US border and as such it is cheaper to trade (freight) with our US neighbours than it is to trade with the ROC. Provincial trade barriers do not help either. Taking that one step further, if it is more profitable to trade with the US than the ROC what happens when the rest of the world is much farther away?
Next you do not generate a world changing plethora of products overnight. Usually they come along a few at a time and never enough to outweigh the trade in other goods. So the everyday items like resource products, food and manufactured goods will be the majority of our trade goods. Back to geography. The greatest volume of trade will be with your closest neighbours due to the economics of transportation. Currently 80% of our trade is with the US, leaving 20% for the rest of the world. I would like to see the rest of the world number grow significantly larger, but even relatively large increases like 5% is only a 1% change. It will take a long time to move us to a world trading power house.