With a trade war with the U.S. officially underway (see our analysis of the economic impacts in yesterday’s Twenty-Four), it’s an opportune time to be thinking about trade within Canada. As we discussed last month, removing the many barriers to internal trade in Canada would yield large economic benefits and offset some of the damage the trade war will cause.

To provide context for this task, today’s Twenty-Four looks at the degree to which businesses in Canada engage in interprovincial trade using the recently released results of the Canadian Survey on Interprovincial Trade.*

How many businesses buy or sell interprovincially?

About 4 in 10 (41%) survey respondents said they purchased goods or services from suppliers in another province or territory at some point during the 12 months preceding the survey.

Another 27% sold goods or services to customers in another province or territory. Moving goods around is also part of this with 7% of businesses involved in transporting goods from one province or territory to another.

Removing the overlap, the survey found that just under half (49%) of Canadian businesses engaged in interprovincial trade during the 12 months before the survey.

The numbers are a little higher in Alberta, where 51% of businesses purchased goods or services from another province or territory; 32% sold goods or services, and 10% moved goods from one jurisdiction to another. This works out to almost 6 in 10 (58%) of Alberta businesses directly engaged in interprovincial trade.

What portion of purchases and sales are interprovincial?

The survey found that, on average, 25% of the total goods and services purchased by businesses in the 12 months before the survey came from suppliers in another province or territory. For total sales, it was 22% that was sold to businesses in another province or territory.

For Alberta businesses, 30% of what they purchased came from other parts of the country while 24% of their sales was to buyers in other provinces or territories.

These numbers confirm that interprovincial trade is a key part of businesses activity in Canada and highlight the importance of making internal trade as frictionless as possible in order to ensure businesses, workers, investors and the economy in general get the most benefits from it as possible. 

*Conducted from June 18 to October 15, 2024, the target population for the survey was businesses with five or more employees, reporting revenues of $50,000 or more across 13 industries: agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting; mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction; construction; manufacturing; wholesale trade; retail trade; transportation and warehousing; information and cultural industries; finance and insurance; professional, scientific, and technical services; health care and social assistance; repair and maintenance; and personal and laundry services.

Answer to the previous trivia question: There are roughly 318 billion trees in Canada.

Today’s trivia question: What is the campaign theme of the 2025 International Women’s Day?