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Supply management is a system designed to control the supply — and thereby stabilize the price — of Canadian dairy, chicken, turkey and egg products (see Poultry Farming). It began in 1972 as a response to a series of crises that farmers faced due to decreasing prices for these products.

A bond is a tool that businesses, governments and other organizations use to borrow money. More specifically, it is a loan agreement through which the bond issuer (the borrower) agrees to pay the lender a specified amount by a certain date. Bond agreements generally also include interest payments. While the borrower usually pays the lender interest on the loan, bonds sometimes have negative interest, meaning the lender pays interest to hold the bond. Bonds and debt financing are important tools for funding large infrastructure projects and wars. (See Canada Savings Bonds; Victory Loans.)

Financial services, as the name implies, are finance-related services that businesses provide to clients. In a Canadian context, the best example relates to the country’s large banks. The World Economic Forum ranked Canada’s large banks as the safest on the planet following the 2008 financial crisis.

Food and beverage processing or manufacturing is one of Canada's major secondary industries and a vital component of the nation's overall AGRIBUSINESS system.

The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), chartered 2 May 1670, is the oldest incorporated joint-stock merchandising company in the English-speaking world. HBC was a fur trading business for most of its history, a past that is entwined with the colonization of British North America and the development of Canada. The company now owns and operates nearly 250 department stores in Canada and the United States, including Hudson’s Bay, Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks OFF 5TH. Originally headquartered in London, England, its head offices are located in Brampton, Ontario. HBC is a private business owned by a holding company.

On 2 July 1992, the federal government banned cod fishing along Canada’s east coast. This moratorium ended nearly five centuries of cod fishing in Newfoundland and Labrador. Cod had played a central role in the province’s economy and culture.

The aim of the policy was to help restore cod stocks that had been depleted due to overfishing. Today, the cod population remains too low to support a full-scale fishery. For this reason, the ban is still largely in place.

Click here for definitions of key terms used in this article.

Ontario and Quebec constitute Central Canada, a region that accounts for over 58 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP). The economic history of the region begins with the hunting, farming and trading societies of the Indigenous peoples. Following the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, the economy has undergone a series of seismic shifts, marked by the transcontinental fur trade, then rapid urbanization, industrialization and technological change.

Media convergence refers to the merging of previously distinct media technologies and platforms through digitization and computer networking. This is also known as technological convergence. Media convergence is also a business strategy whereby communications companies integrate their ownership of different media properties. This is also called media consolidation, media concentration or economic convergence. (See also Media Ownership.)

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was an economic free trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico. Designed to eliminate all trade and investment barriers between the three countries, the free trade agreement came into force on 1 January 1994. In addition to being one of the most ambitious trade agreements in history, NAFTA also created the world’s largest free trade area. It brought together two wealthy, developed countries (Canada and the United States) with a less developed state (Mexico). The agreement built on the earlier Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA), which came into effect on 1 January 1989. After NAFTA was signed, trade and investment relations between the three countries expanded rapidly, but political co-operation remained weak. NAFTA continued to be controversial, particularly in the United States. In 2017, US president Donald Trump threatened to renegotiate or cancel the deal. More than a year of negotiations produced a revised version of NAFTA called the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). CUSMA came into effect on 1 July 2020.

An asset is a useful and desirable thing or quality. The word is most often used in business, financial or accounting contexts. Canada has some of the world’s most impressive physical and natural resources. These resources may be viewed as “national assets.” The concept is also useful in personal finance, as housing is most Canadian families’ largest asset.

Sustainability is the ability of the biosphere, or of a certain resource or practice, to persist in a state of balance over the long term. The concept of sustainability also includes things humans can do to preserve such a balance. Sustainable development, for instance, pairs such actions with growth. It aims to meet the needs of the present while ensuring that future people will be able to meet their needs.

There are major economic differences among Canada’s four main geographic regions — Ontario, Quebec, the West and Atlantic Canada — each affected by its own history of economic development, industrial location, urbanization, land use and migration.

A debt is something that one owes to another. While debt can take many forms, the term usually refers to money owed. In a Canadian context, debts have become an increasing concern during the past three decades. According to Statistics Canada, at the end of the second quarter of 2020, Canadian non-financial businesses, governments and households owed almost $7.1 trillion in debts. That works out to roughly $186,000 per person. (See also Public Debt.)

In economics, a bubble refers to a rapid rise in asset prices, to the point that they become disconnected from the fundamental value of the underlying asset. A change in investor behaviour is the most common cause of a bubble. When many investors rush to invest in a new technology or take advantage of low interest rates, for example, the increased demand for the asset can raise the price far above its real worth.

Four Seasons Hotels Ltd., headquartered in Toronto, owns and manages luxury hotels and resorts worldwide. Architect and builder Isadore Sharp founded the company in 1960.

The Trans Mountain Expansion is a project to build about 980 km of new pipe, most of which will run parallel to the existing Trans Mountain oil pipeline. The new line will carry diluted bitumen, or “dilbit,” from Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby, British Columbia. The expansion will increase the pipeline route’s overall capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day.

The project’s first owner, Kinder Morgan Canada, sold it to the Government of Canada in 2018. The Trans Mountain Expansion has been a focus of environmental and economic debates, as well as political conflicts. The $12.6 billion project is now under construction.

In Canada, all crustacean species with significant economic value are in the order Decapoda. Decapods, which have five pairs of walking legs, include lobsters, crab and shrimp. These species constitute most of the dollar value of Canadian fisheries. In some areas, particularly in the Atlantic provinces, the local economy is almost completely dependent on them.

In commerce, commodities are interchangeable goods or services. Many natural resources in Canada are viewed as commodities. They are a major source of the country’s wealth. Examples of commodities include a barrel of crude oil, an ounce of gold, or a contract to clear snow during the winter. Commodity products often supply the production of other goods or services. Many are widely traded in futures exchanges (see Commodity Trading).

Sleeping car porters were railway employees who attended to passengers aboard sleeping cars. Porters were responsible for passengers’ needs throughout a train trip, including carrying luggage, setting up beds, pressing clothes and shining shoes, and serving food and beverages, among other services. The vast majority of sleeping car porters were Black men and the position was one of only a few job opportunities available to Black men in Canada. While the position carried respect and prestige for Black men in their communities, the work demanded long hours for little pay. Porters could be fired suddenly and were often subjected to racist treatment. Black Canadian porters formed the first Black railway union in North America (1917) and became members of the larger Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1939. Both unions combatted racism and the many challenges that porters experienced on the job.