Growth in Canada’s cereal and oilseed exports post trade agreements mixed

Over the last six years, Canada has signed three multilateral trade agreements with some of the world’s largest economies. The Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) came into provisional force in 2017, giving Canada preferential access to the (now) 27 countries in the European Union, with a total population of near 450 million in 2023 as one of the world’s largest economies and one of Canada’s largest agrifood export markets.

In 2018, Canada signed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Canada-United States-Mexico trade agreement (CUSMA) which, in many ways, continued the preferential access granted by the former North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and was in force as of November 2020. CUSMA is arguably Canada’s most lucrative agreement, with the U.S. our largest global trading partner. Given the many ways our economies are tied together, it has always been our largest export market for food products.

The CPTPP opens access to ten Pacific Rim countries (Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam), many of which, while not Canada’s traditional partners in agriculture and food trade, are growing their imports as their domestic household spending grows. The United Kingdom is expected to join the CPTPP as a member state by 2025.

But while opening access is necessary to improving trade, it doesn’t guarantee that Canadian exports will grow to those regions with whom we share agreements. Five years after the signing of CUSMA and CPTPP, and six years after signing CETA, the agreements have paid off for Canada’s cereal exports, but to a lesser degree for oilseed exports.

Post-signing cereal export growth rates show benefits of trade agreements

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