Introduction to Special Issue on Canada's Staples Industries

Abstract

No longer tied exclusively to the original staples industries, Canada has become an advanced economy but one which remains different from the typical model of advanced manufacturing and services found in Europe, the US and Japan. The base of the Canadian economy retains its roots in early staples industries but with many new activities grafted into, and onto, those traditional sector. This transformation of the old staples political economy has ushered in some elements of a new political and social order at the same time that it as exacerbated or worsened many elements of the old. The contributors to this volume provide an overview of these changes in the political economy of Canada’s contemporary primary sector.