Many rural communities in Canada have dangerous trade imbalances, thanks to decades of emphasis on export-led growth and relatively little attention to the importance of meeting local demand with local production. As global markets fluctuate dramatically, communities watch their export income disappear and face acute shortages of goods and services they normally import. The conventional approach to fixing trade imbalances is to increase exports, but it leaves communities with a mismatch between what they produce and what they need. A underutilized approach to fixing trade imbalances is to decrease imports through ‘import replacement’, with an eye to meeting local needs with local production, keeping money circulating locally and creating good, stable, long-term jobs in the local economy.
