http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Canada’s entire history has been intertwined with its natural resources. But in our nation’s 150th year, our status as a resource economy may be at a crossroads as it grapples with a downturn in the energy sector. We’ve had cyclical ups and downs before, but might this time be different? And if so, are we ready for the challenges ahead?
Before there was a Canada, there were the resources.
The Europeans arrived in this harsh, untamed land more or less by mistake, looking for a shortcut to the Far East; but the abundance of natural wealth lured them back. The fish and furs and trees, the ores within the earth, the vast expanses of rich soil – the natural resources were the reason people came here, stayed, formed the communities and towns and cities that eventually banded into a country.
“The present Dominion emerged not in spite of geography but because of it,” wrote economic historian Harold Innis in 1930 in The Fur Trade in Canada, perhaps the most influential examination of Canada’s economic development ever written.