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Canada is one of the world’s leading producers and exporters of agri-food products, and the sector contributed $149.2 billion of the country’s GDP in 2024. Since Canadian agricultural producers and food processors rely extensively on exports, the growth and sustainability of the sector depends heavily on international market access.

Trade tensions are disrupting supply chains [and] businesses are being forced to reconsider their supply chain dependencies and export strategies. For a highly trade-dependent economy like Canada’s, the stakes are significant.

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No commodity illustrates the volatility of single-market dependence more clearly than canola.

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China accounts for more than 60 per cent of Canada’s canola seed exports. Canola exports to China were relatively stable until 2019, when they declined sharply amid rising diplomatic tensions following the December 2018 arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Exports fell from about five million metric tonnes in 2018 to 1.5 million metric tonnes in 2019.

Trade recovered, and by 2024 canola exports to China had climbed to nearly six million metric tonnes. But they fell again to about two million in 2025 after China imposed a 100 per cent surtax on Canadian canola in retaliation for Canada’s equivalent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles.

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A major priority of the Canadian government should be to deepen and expand Canada’s market access globally. That requires a comprehensive strategy combining export diversification, economic diplomacy and investment in domestic productivity.

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Canada must also continue strengthening its trade relationship with the U.S. while expanding trade relations with countries in Europe, Asia beyond China, Africa and Latin America. The goal is to ensure no single partner’s political decisions can destabilize Canada’s agricultural economy.

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