11 breathtaking facts about the Canadian economy

• Canada could have more oil reserves than the Middle East.
• The country's huge coastline – the longest in the world – contributes to its role as the leading seafood producer.
  
• Health care in Canada accounts for about half of the per capita cost in the United States.

• And this is only a sample. Here are 11 surprising facts about the Canadian economy.
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Canada was colonized by Europeans, including the French and British, by the end of the 15th century and was founded as a modern Canadian nation in 1867.

It is a prosperous country that can reach the 10th world GDP, fueled in part by its vast natural resources, its important manufacturing base and its dynamic seafood industry.

Today, Canada is the only major country in the Western Hemisphere with a parliamentary system of government (with the exception of a few Caribbean island states) borrowed from the United Kingdom. . The country is divided into 10 provinces, with 75% of the population concentrated in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.

The nation has managed to prosper thanks to a friendly neighbor to the south who shares military and defense interests, not to mention healthy trade and tourism. And Canada can claim one of the highest standards of living in the world.

Here are 11 surprising facts about the Canadian economy:

Canadian citizens have the second highest quality of life in the world

Reuters / Chris Wattie

The World Economic Forum ranks countries according to their quality of life by using criteria such as access to medical care, sanitation and housing, as well as education, education and training. life expectancy and individual freedoms.

Among the countries selected as the WEF are countries such as Australia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Sweden. But Canada is second only to Finland. The country got a score of 89.49 on the scale of the forum, behind the Finnish at 90.09.

75% of all Canadian exports arrive in the United States

Reuters / Todd Korol

The United States does not simply share a common border with Canada; it is also the main trading partner of the country – and this is not for nothing. Canada exports $ 338 billion worth of goods to the United States, which represents more than 75% of the country's total exports of $ 450 billion.

In contrast, Canada is shipping only $ 12.6 billion in goods to the United Kingdom and $ 21.3 billion to China in strong growth.

Canada has $ 33.2 billion in natural resources

Thomson Reuters

If your mental image of Canada's natural resources is limited to a few caribou herds on the snow all year round, you are mistaken, it is actually the third richest country in the world in natural resources.

The nation is home to the world's third largest confirmed oil reserves, as well as industrial minerals, and is rich in minerals such as gypsum, limestone, rock salt and potash, coal and uranium. It is also the third largest exporter of wood in the world.

Canada's oil reserves may exceed those in the Middle East

Wikimedia Commons

Although Canada's oil reserves are officially ranked one-third of the world's largest, there is evidence that it could be a conservative estimate. There are two factors at play here. For starters, the Saudi oil industry has not revised the number of its official reserves since 1988 and, in 2011, Wikileaks revealed that current oil reserves could be up to 40% lower than those claimed by OPEC.

At the same time, a new oil sands badysis from Alberta shows that the province's reserves could far exceed Saudi Arabia's reserves, making it the largest crude oil reserves in the country. the planet.

Canadians are the biggest consumer of Mac and Kraft cheese in the world, and they consume 55% more than Americans each year.

Spencer Green / AP

Canadians love macaroni and cheese, especially the Kraft brand of cheese pasta. Every year, Canadians consume 55% more Mac and Kraft cheese than Americans and consume 3.2 tins per person per year, making Canada the largest consumer of this product on the planet.

The Kraft dinner, as it is called there, is so popular that Food Republic has called it a "de facto national dish".

Canada, with its world-leading coastline of 125,567 miles, earns $ 4 billion a year in seafood

REUTERS / Lucy Nicholson

It is notoriously difficult to measure the length of the ribs – because irregular and irregular ribs behave mathematically like fractals, you get radically different results depending on the accuracy with which you measure.

Nevertheless, it is indisputable that Canada has by far the longest coastline in the world, five times longer than Russia and almost ten times longer than Australia. This coastline is helping Canada become the world's sixth largest exporter of seafood. Canada generates $ 4.2 billion worth of seafood a year, including over $ 1.5 billion in lobster.

Canada produces 71% of all maple syrup in the world

REUTERS / Brian Snyder

Pancake lovers should be hopeful that global warming will not affect maple trees in northern Canada. Because, although Vermont is a maple syrup powerhouse in the United States, it is not indifferent to Canada, which produces 71 percent of all maple syrup in the world.

91% of this comes from only one province – Quebec. It takes a lot of people to run maple syrup, with about 12,000 jobs dedicated to the industry.

Being bilingual costs Canada about $ 2.4 billion a year

Chris Wattie / Reuters

Thanks to its early colonial history, Canada is a bilingual country, with about 20% of the population, or 7.2 million people, speaking French. Most of the country's Francophones live in Quebec, where French is the official language.

Across Canada, Anglophones and Francophones have access to government servers in the language of their choice, with bilingual signage, forms, advertisements and more.

A study conducted in 2012 found that hosting in English and French throughout the country had a cost, especially around $ 2.4 billion. The federal government takes about $ 1.5 billion, the rest being recovered by the various provinces.

Canadians pay half of health care compared to Americans

Flickr / tnimalan

The comparison of health care between the United States and Canada is a controversial political issue, largely because Canada has adopted a single payer system that many US Conservatives oppose. Despite this, despite the perception in the United States, health care in Canada is far from "free," even though it is significantly less expensive on average than in the South.

According to most estimates, Canadians spend about $ 4,569 a year on health care; in the United States it ranges from $ 9,086 to over $ 10,000.

Lower drug prices in Canada have contributed to a dangerous shortage of EpiPens

Reuters

Drug prices are often cheaper in Canada than in the United States, often because of Canadian regulations that impose more affordable prices, while the market generally sets prices in the United States. This can result in significant price differences for the most popular drugs.

In 2018, for example, EpiPens – which administers self-administered epinephrine injections to people with severe allergies – experienced a staff shortage due to manufacturing issues in the unique Pfizer facility where the pens were manufactured . The United States, which at the time sold EpiPens three times as much in Canada, avoided shortages, while Canada struggled to increase supply in the face of severe shortages.

Retail products are often more expensive in Canada simply because Canadians are willing to pay more

Getty Images

Canadian consumers have long noted that many products, such as books, tires, gas and food, cost more than identical products in the United States, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot.

This happens for many reasons. When the price is embedded in the product itself, such as books, for example, suppliers often choose a higher price to account for exchange rates and other economic factors.

But according to a survey conducted by HuffPost, this is often simply because manufacturers are confident that Canadians will pay higher prices simply because Canadians think things are always more expensive in Canada – even if they are not. there is no logistical reason for this to be true.