Prime Minister Mark Carney has said the new budget will give the country a clear goal: double non-United States

trade within 10 years, generating an additional $300 billion. It’s a big ambition that begs a question: How?

We do have products to sell, especially in commodity-heavy Western Canada, and there are clear signals from Europe and Indo-Pacific countries that they want to do more business with Canada. Indeed, some have expressed frustration and bewilderment that we can’t supply them with what they want. We’ve even been accused of hoarding.

Energy, agriculture, critical minerals and more. We have what the world wants and needs, so why can’t we meet the moment?

In the West, we often point to the country’s trade infrastructure system. True, we do have an aging tapestry of rail, roads and ports that often strain the seams. But problems go beyond capacity. For example, the Port of Vancouver had a record first half of the year, logging a 13 per cent increase in cargo moved between January and June. There are also two expansion plans in the works: Roberts Bank and Deltaport.

These are reasons to celebrate, but it would be a public relations exercise to suggest all is well.

There have been labour disputes (remember 2023 and 2024?), on-again, off-again legal disputes and regulatory hurdles for the expansion projects (Roberts Bank took more than 10 years), weather delays (hard to forget the floods of 2021), plus rail and road bottlenecks and delays across the Western provinces. The port’s expansion is applause-worthy, but not a panacea.

You can’t fix the West’s trade infrastructure problems with a new berth in a port, a new road that bypasses a flood plain or double-tracking sections of rail. It’s a complex, integrated network and needs a holistic approach, which is why many organizations, including the Canada West Foundation, have banded together to promote a national trade infrastructure plan.

A sea-to-sea-to-sea trade corridor plan, evergreen and guided by government and industry, will help eliminate short-sighted decisions based on four-year election cycles or other political imperatives and achieve end-to-end network improvement.

Another choke point is Canada’s abundance of red tape. We have a cumbersome Impact Assessment Act, but there are often two different but simultaneous assessments that need to be conducted on the same project. These cost time and money with little evidence of better outcomes.

Recognizing this, Carney has promised the new Major Projects Office will work with provinces, territories, Indigenous people and private investors to create a “one project, one review” approach to project approvals.

There’s more than one way to reach this target. The oft-cited Cedar LNG project made it through the approvals process in a record 3.5 years because the federal government agreed British Columbia’s assessment could substitute for its own.

B.C. conducted the assessment in a way that met the regulations of both the provincial and federal governments. In the end, both levels made their own decisions, with the federal approval coming a day after B.C.’s.

Substitution is just one alternative available to governments. Delegation, in which one government turns over some but not all activities to the other, is a second option, while a division of assessment based on areas of constitutional jurisdiction is a third.

The key in all of these is collaboration and cooperation. Both sides must be, in World Series parlance, willing to play ball.

Giving up control is a risk, but policy and regulations are often tools employed by governments to manage risk. If Canada is to succeed in building for the future, governments require the courage to change regulations and assume more risk.

This is not to say that if we fix our domestic challenges, the trade taps will flow freely. There are, and will always be, external factors outside our control. Political barriers such as China’s 100 per cent

tariffs on imported Canadian canola oil, protectionist policies like Italy’s mandatory country-of-origin labelling for pasta or the European Union’s carbon-adjustment fees levied on select imports can be negotiated, but, in the end, decisions are ultimately out of our control.

These non-tariff and other regulatory hurdles often seem insurmountable and it’s understandable that we often take the easier trade route south. But relying solely on the U.S. market is no longer an option.

As Carney has warned, finding new markets won’t be easy and success won’t come overnight. It will take the country working together to identify the most impactful investments and to efficiently move them through the review and approval process.

Trade built this country. The next decade will determine whether it can build our future.

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