Commentary
Changing where Canadians buy and sell food is proving much harder than changing how they feel about the United States.
The latest Statistics Canada figures, which came out this week, suggest that neither the boycott of American food nor efforts to diversify Canada’s agri-food trade have meaningfully reduced our dependence on the Unites States. Between January and August 2026, Canadian agri-food imports from the United States declined by 0.7 percent, compared with the same period in 2025.
That might sound like evidence that Canadians’ determination to avoid American products is having an impact. But Canada’s total agri-food imports declined by 1.2 percent. Consequently, the American share of our agri-food imports increased from 47.09 percent to 47.33 percent, a gain of 0.24 percentage points….