Statistics Canada's 2025 goods-exporter data underscore the scale problem embedded in the country's ambition to double non-United States exports within the next decade, said National Bank of Canada.
Canada counts nearly 48,000 goods-exporting enterprises, but 82% of them employ fewer than 50 workers despite accounting for only 14.3% of total goods exports, while firms with 500 or more employees represent a tiny fraction of exporters but close to 60% of export value, noted the bank.
This is not a marginal complication, stated National Bank. Diversification isn't simply a matter of redirecting shipments away from the U.S. market, as it requires financing, compliance capacity, distribution networks, international-market intelligence, currency-risk management and the ability to withstand a long sales cycle before new relationships become profitable.
For smaller firms, the constraint is structural because many are embedded in North American supply chains built around proximity, recurring customer relationships, integrated logistics and production specifications that are not easily replicated overseas.
The irony is that Canada's target may be easier to meet in aggregate than in substance, pointed out the bank. Canada can raise non-U.S. export values through commodities and other scale-intensive sectors where global demand is deep, and output is more readily redirected across markets.
However, that path does less for the employment-intensive parts of the export base, where supply chain links are stickier and diversification costs are proportionally higher. The result is a policy tension that could be masked by the headline gross domestic product.
A resource-led export pivot may improve the arithmetic of diversification while smaller exporters face higher costs, thinner margins and greater risk of lost capacity. If building scale is part of the desired outcome, then trade policy cannot be separated from the domestic incentives that shape firm size, the bank added.