Trading with Canada: Chapter 4 - What's Next? Building for Growth

The Trading with Canada article series is part of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade's Canada Connects initiative, a market expansion accelerator helping B.C. businesses identify growth opportunities across Canada. Through research on domestic trade flows, market demand, and sector competitiveness, this series explores where British Columbia businesses are best positioned to expand and how they can build new customers, partnerships, and revenue streams across the country. 

Throughout this series, we have examined where British Columbia businesses are best positioned to grow within Canada's domestic economy. We found that Ontario and Alberta remain B.C.'s most important trading partners, while Quebec represents a significant opportunity for expansion. We also found that many of the province's strongest growth opportunities are concentrated in professional services, software, research and development, information industries, transportation, and other knowledge-intensive sectors.

Those findings help answer an important question: where should businesses look for customers today?

They also raise another question: what will drive the next phase of growth for British Columbia and Canada?

Removing interprovincial trade barriers and helping businesses enter new markets are important goals. But long-term economic growth requires more than market access.

Businesses depend on transportation networks that move goods efficiently. They rely on ports, airports, energy systems, digital infrastructure, and supply chains that connect producers with customers. They need productive industries, skilled workers, and modern infrastructure capable of supporting future growth.

As governments, businesses, and communities look for ways to strengthen Canada's economy during a period of trade uncertainty, attention is increasingly shifting beyond trade policy alone. The conversation is now equally focused on the infrastructure, investment, and industrial capacity needed to support a more integrated and resilient national economy. 

The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade's Agenda for Economic Growth identified more than $230 billion in potential investment opportunities across British Columbia. These opportunities span energy infrastructure, LNG, critical minerals and mining development, clean energy generation and transmission, and trade-enabling infrastructure.

Individually, these projects represent significant economic opportunities. Collectively, they represent a gateway to strengthen Canada's productive capacity, improve trade connectivity, and support long-term economic growth. This is where many of the findings from this series begin to converge because the benefits also extend well beyond the project's proponents themselves.

Major projects create demand for engineering firms, technology companies, environmental consultants, transportation and logistics providers, manufacturers, construction companies, professional services firms, researchers, and many other businesses that support project development and delivery.

In other words, many of the sectors identified throughout this series as competitive strengths for British Columbia are also the sectors required to design, build, operate, and support the next generation of major investments.

One of the strongest themes to emerge from our analysis was the importance of knowledge-based and trade-enabling industries.

Professional services help plan and manage complex projects. Technology firms develop digital solutions that improve productivity and operations. Research and development organizations support innovation and commercialization. Transportation and logistics companies connect businesses to customers and suppliers across Canada and around the world.

These capabilities are increasingly important as governments and industry pursue investments designed to strengthen economic resilience, diversify trade relationships, and improve Canada's long-term competitiveness.

Emerging investments in Arctic infrastructure provide one example. New transportation corridors, port facilities, energy projects, and critical minerals developments are creating demand for expertise in engineering, environmental services, logistics, project delivery, technology, and resource development. Many of those capabilities already exist within British Columbia's economy.

The same is true for growing defence and security investments. While often discussed through a procurement lens, these investments also create opportunities across a broader ecosystem of technology companies, manufacturers, transportation providers, professional service firms, and supply-chain partners.

What matters is not any single project or program. What matters is the growing demand for the kinds of expertise and capabilities where British Columbia already holds competitive advantages.

A common thread runs through each article in this series.

British Columbia's strongest opportunities often emerge where competitiveness, growing demand, and the ability to scale intersect. In some cases, that means helping businesses expand into Ontario, Alberta, or Quebec. In others, it means supporting projects that improve transportation networks, strengthen supply chains, increase productive capacity, or create new opportunities for Canadian businesses.

The goal goes beyond increasing trade volumes between provinces. It is about building a more connected and stronger Canadian economy.

For decades, Canadian businesses often looked first to international markets for growth. Those markets will remain critically important. Yet the upheaval of global trade by Trump’s trade wars has highlighted the importance of strengthening economic relationships within Canada, reducing barriers to commerce, and investing in the conditions that allow businesses to grow.

The opportunity is significant. The markets, demand, and capabilities exist. The challenge now is to connect them.

The research behind this series has identified where British Columbia businesses are most likely to find opportunities for expansion. Canada Connects is designed to help businesses act on those opportunities through market intelligence, training, strategic connections, and practical support.

The broader opportunity extends beyond any individual business. Whether through stronger interprovincial trade, major project development, improved infrastructure, or new commercial partnerships, Canada is entering a period where building a more connected domestic economy has become both an economic necessity and a competitive advantage.

For British Columbia businesses, that presents an opportunity not only to participate in that growth, but to help lead it. 

To learn how your business can get involved, explore new markets, and build connections across the country, visit the Canada Connects webpage: https://www.boardoftrade.com/wtc/canada-connects