For most of its history, Canada's economy was built on shipping raw materials to other countries: first cod and furs, then timber and wheat, later minerals, oil and gas. Economists call these staples. Resource industries are still a big deal. In 2024, Natural Resources Canada estimated that the natural resource sector (energy, minerals and metals, and forestry), directly and indirectly, made up about 16 percent of Canada's GDP and supported about 1.8 million jobs, and natural resource products made up about 53 percent of the value of Canada's merchandise exports. This lesson looks at the industries that do the extracting and harvesting, and at how they do it.
Farming
Only a small part of Canada, roughly 7 percent of its land, is farmed, because most of the country is too cold, too rocky or too wet. Farms cluster where soil, climate and flat land line up. The Prairies grow most of Canada's wheat, canola, barley, lentils and beef cattle on chernozem soils. Southern Ontario and Quebec have the longest growing season and much of Canada's best farmland: dairy, corn, soybeans, vegetables in the Holland Marsh, and tender fruit and grapes in the Niagara fruit belt, where Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment protect orchards from frost. The Okanagan and Annapolis valleys grow apples and grapes. The problem in Ontario is that the best farmland is also where cities are spreading (Unit 5).
- No-till farming: seeds are planted straight into the stubble of last year's crop, so the soil is not ploughed. The stubble protects the soil from wind and water erosion and keeps carbon in the ground. Since the 1990s it has become common across Prairie cropland.
- Crop rotation: changing crops from year to year (for example canola, then wheat, then lentils) keeps soil healthy and breaks pest cycles. Lentils and peas add nitrogen to the soil.
- Precision agriculture: GPS-guided tractors, drones and satellite images let farmers apply seed, fertilizer and water only where they are needed, saving money and reducing runoff into rivers and lakes.
Forestry
Canada has roughly 9 percent of the world's forests, and most of its forest land is Crown (public) land, so provinces decide who may cut, where and how, and companies must regrow the forest after harvest. Each year only a small fraction of Canada's forest, less than half of 1 percent, is harvested. Logging happens mainly in the boreal forest across the Shield (pulp, paper and lumber from spruce, pine and fir) and in the temperate rainforest of the BC coast (giant cedar, hemlock and Douglas fir). How the trees are cut depends on the type of forest and on what people value about it.
- All the trees in an area are cut at once
- Cheapest and safest for workers; suits forests of same-aged trees, such as much of the boreal forest, which naturally regrows after fires
- Then replanted or left to regrow naturally
- Concerns: loss of habitat, soil erosion, muddy streams and an ugly landscape for years
- Only certain trees are chosen and cut, leaving the rest standing
- Suits mixed forests with trees of different ages, such as many Great Lakes–St. Lawrence forests
- Keeps forest cover, habitat and recreation value
- Concerns: more roads and higher costs per tree; poorly done, it can take the best trees and leave the weakest
Fishing and aquaculture
Today Canada's wild fisheries are managed with quotas (catch limits for each species and area), closed seasons and rules on gear. The Atlantic catch has shifted from groundfish like cod to shellfish: lobster and snow crab are now the most valuable. A growing share of seafood comes from aquaculture, the farming of fish and shellfish, such as salmon in net pens in BC and New Brunswick and mussels and oysters in Prince Edward Island. Fish farming takes pressure off wild stocks, but open-net salmon pens can spread sea lice and disease to wild salmon and release waste. In 2024 the federal government announced that open-net pen salmon farming in BC coastal waters must end by June 30, 2029, pushing the industry toward closed containment systems. Some coastal First Nations supported the ban to protect wild salmon; others with fish-farm jobs and agreements in their territories opposed it.
Mining and the oil sands
- Used when the ore is near the surface
- Rock is blasted and scooped out, making a huge stepped pit
- Cheaper per tonne and safer for workers
- Disturbs a large area; leaves waste rock piles and a pit to reclaim
- Examples: diamond mines in the NWT, iron ore in Labrador, oil sands mines north of Fort McMurray
- Used when the ore lies deep below the surface
- Shafts and tunnels are dug to reach the ore body
- More expensive and needs ventilation and careful safety systems
- Disturbs far less of the land surface
- Examples: nickel and copper mines around Sudbury, gold mines in Timmins and Red Lake
The oil sands of northern Alberta show how accessibility decides the method. Only bitumen less than about 75 m deep can be surface mined: trucks and shovels dig the sand, and hot water separates the bitumen. According to the Government of Alberta, the mineable area is only about 4,800 km², or about 3.4 percent of the 142,200 km² under which the oil sands lie. Everything deeper must be recovered in situ ("in place"), most often by steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD): steam is pumped down one well to soften the bitumen, which flows down into a second well and is pumped up. In situ disturbs much less land and creates no tailings ponds, but making the steam burns natural gas, so it still releases a lot of greenhouse gas.