Overview

While Canada was founded upon and has grown prosperous due to its wealth of natural resources, its staples sector currently finds itself in a period of transition at the dawn of the 21st century.

Long-established industries such as mining, oil and gas, fisheries, forestry, hydroelectricity, and agriculture now exist within an increasingly diversified and high-tech global economy, and face many political, social, and economic challenges as they adapt to a rapidly changing world.

From genetically engineered food to aquaculture, new forestry certification standards, Aboriginal title, and free trade agreements, to the increasing importance of water as a commodity, the landscape of Canada’s resource economy is changing. Creating and compounding these challenges are the overarching threats of environmental degradation and resource depletion, and the emergence of complex regulatory and governance regimes intended to deal with these and other issues.

Canada’s Resource Economy in Transition draws on experts in various fields to provide an understanding of the theory, history, and future directions of Canada’s staples industries.

Top ∧Content Summary

• Chapter 1: Toward a Post-Staples State? (Michael Howlett & Keith Brownsey)
  

• Chapter 2: The (Post) Staples Economy and the (Post) Staples State in Historical Perspective (Adam Wellstead)
  
• Chapter 3: The Reconstruction of Political Economy and Social Identity in 21st-Century Canada (Thomas A. Hutton)
  

• Chapter 4: The Two Faces of Canadian Agriculture in a Post-Staples Economy
  (Grace Skogstad)
  
• Chapter 5: The New Agriculture: Genetically Engineered Food in Canada (Elizabeth Moore)
  
• Chapter 6: The Canadian Fisheries Industry: Retrospect and Prospect (Gunhild Hoogensen)
  
• Chapter 7: Caught in a Staples Vise: The Political Economy of Canadian Aquaculture
  (Jeremy Rayner & Michael Howlett)

• Chapter 8: Shifting Foundations in a Mature Staples Industry: A History of Canadian Mineral Policy (Mary Louise McAllister)
  
• Chapter 9: A New Staples Industry? Complexity, Governance, and Canada's 
Diamond Mines (Patricia J. Fitzpatrick)
  
• Chapter 10: Knotty Tales: Forest Policy Narratives in an Era of Transition
  (Jocelyn Thorpe & L. Anders Sandberg)
  
• Chapter 11: The Future of Non-State Authority in Canadian Staples Industries: Assessing the Emergence of Forest Certification
  (Benjamin Cashore, Graeme Auld, James Lawson, & Deanna Newsom)
  

• Chapter 12: The New Oil Order: The Staples Paradigm and the Canadian Upstream 
Oil and Gas Industry (Keith Brownsey)
  
• Chapter 13: Offshore Petroleum Politics: A Changing Frontier in a Global System
  (Peter Clancy)
  
• Chapter 14: From Black Gold to Blue Gold: The Emerging Water Trade (John N. McDougall)
  
• Chapter 15: The Political Economy of Canadian Hydroelectricity (Alex Netherton)
  

Top ∧About the Authors

Michael Howlett is Burnaby Mountain Chair in the Department of Political Science at Simon Fraser University.

Keith Brownsey teaches in the Department of Public Policy at Mount Royal College in Calgary.