Canada is great economic superpower that has yet to reach its potential. As the second largest nation by area, we possess vast natural resources. We are a massive importer and exporter on the world stage, who a play a vital role in the stability of the northern hemisphere. Through Canadas international trade, we export vast quantities of many different foods stuffs, minerals and manufactured goods like cars, while we tend to import lots of Iron, Aluminum and Steel. Our relations with neighbouring nations have been integral in the success of our trade. In 1994 Canada became a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA with the US and Mexico. NAFTA reorganized Canadas and Americas trading systems to work as one. The trade issue of recent months is about the rising costs of energy in Canada and in the United States. Newly elected President George W. Bush now is proposing a North American energy initiative for a continental power grid. This proposal puts Canada in a very uncomfortable situation. On the one hand we would love to share our resources and appease our super-power to the south. But on the other we prefer to leave our pristine land alone. The growing trend nowadays is that politicians are the ones wanting to please the Americans by giving away our resources, while it is the activist who is concerned about the vast environmental damage this energy legislation could entail. The composition and structure of Canadas trade is an ever changing entity. We are one of the chief lumber exporters in the world. We posses vast oil fields in Alberta, where there are about three-hundred billion barrels of oil as opposed to only two-hundred and sixty in Saudi Arabia. Grains are exported by the ton in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, while hundreds of thousands of automobiles are produced in southern-Ontario and Quebec. Recent patterns in Canadian trade are increasing free trade within the continental hemisphere. With 1994's NAFTA, a...
