Breaking Free: A Post-mercantilist Trade and Productivity Agenda for Canada

To revitalize its flagging trade and productivity performance, Canada should adapt its international trade and investment policies to a world of global value chains, evolving trade and investment patterns, and deepening economic integration; according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Breaking Free: A Post-mercantilist Trade and Productivity Agenda for Canada,” Research Fellow Michael Hart says to be more competitive, Canada needs to wean itself more completely from a mercantilist approach best suited to an era in which products and firms had clear national identities, which is rarely the case today.

“Canada’s trade and investment policies are stuck in the past. We risk being caught flat-footed and side-lined in the highly integrated global marketplace,” says Professor Hart.