Last month I made my first visit to Canada and found it every bit as beautiful and impressive as gets said.
The people I encountered were trusting, and nice. They leave phones at the bar, and will you to cross the road while they happily wait. I noticed a lot of long straight hair and indigenous print. I wondered what proportion were Asian immigrants and which were first nation descendants. I brought US dollars and kept forgetting that I shouldn’t have, but the ubiquitous French translations, a background noise of goofy accents, and Ice Hockey games on public televisions reminded my of Canada’s uniqueness.
British Columbia was mountainous but not Alpine. Perhaps the Wales of Canada, nestled next to (and protected by) Alberta (the Texas). Civic buildings are impressive and outside Vancouver itself it felt like a big Nordic village.
I have produced a Country Profile which summarises the Canadian economy, and am happy to share it publicly:
Click here to download as a PDF.
A note on sources:
Area and population are from Wikipedia. Natural resources, main industries, and GDP composition are from Google Gemini. Sector breakdown is CIA (World Factbook). Income level is World Bank (World Bank Country and Lending Groups). Financial markets is MSCI Market Classification. Economic Freedom is from Fraser Institute and represents the category of “Most free”. Political Freedom is from Freedom House and represents the category of “Free”. Main exports (by product) are from Trading Economics (Exports per category) and via COMTRADE. Main exports (by country) are World Bank (World Integrated Trade Solution).
