Module 3: "Natural Resources and the Canadian Economy" and “Developing a Vital Resource for Canadians and the World”

Natural resources are an important part of the fabric of Canada’s economy.

This country has enormous natural wealth, from huge reserves of energy to massive tracts of forest and an abundance of minerals and metals.

Natural resources account for 13 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP) and 50 percent of our exports.

When you include the spin-off industries that provide goods and services to the sector, natural resources account for over 18 percent of our GDP—nearly a fifth of our economy.

The energy, mining, and forestry industries provide over $30 billion a year in revenue to governments—money that supports critical social programs such as health, education, and public pensions.

What it means to us is that there’s development, there’s economic development specifically, so there’s a lot of people that can come back to Saskatchewan and have good jobs.

By 2050 we’ll be at 9 billion people, and with that we need more food—and at the end of the day, there’s not more land to be had for agriculture.

So in order to get more food, what we have to do is we have to apply fertilizers, crop nutrients, so that essentially what we do is, per acre of land, we produce more food.

We’re very fortunate not only to have these resources, but to be able to effectively mine them, and be able to have sustainable business from them, because I think that’s one of the most important things in Canada’s economy, and specifically Saskatchewan’s economy as well.

It has definitely provided a very good lifestyle for my family, and this is money that’s going back into the province.