The most recent merchandise trade numbers -- which cover 2002 to the end of November -- are dull and slightly disappointing. But, because of that, they are fascinating from another point of view.

Canada is a trading nation. Our economy depends on trade. Because November was a pretty typical month, the new trade data help explain the sunny economy Canada is enjoying -- strong growth and falling unemployment. At the risk of having readers’ eyes glaze over, I thought it worthwhile to take a detailed look at trade because this is at the heart of our economic performance.

Canada’s trade record to the end of November was somewhat disappointing. Exports were down a touch. For the first 11 months of 2002, they fell 2 per cent from $382.6 to $375.3 billion. Still, at this pace, exports for all of 2002 will likely exceed $400 billion, equal to about 40 per cent of the Canadian economy.

Roughly speaking, 85 per cent of that will be exports to the United States. US exports will reach about $350 billion by the end of 2002. For the first 11 months, exports to the United States were $318.7 billion, down slightly from $323.8 billion during the same period in 2001.

Although total exports were slightly down, imports were slightly up. For the first 11 months of 2002, imports rose to $325.8 billion from $323.1 billion in 2001. On the other hand, imports from the United States were down a bit, from $235.0 to $233.9 billion.

Here’s where things get more interesting. Canada’s trade surplus with the United States to the end of November equaled $84.7 billion and will be near $100 billion dollars by the end of the year.

Canada depends on that surplus. With every other major trading block, Canada runs a large deficit. In the first 11 months of 2002, leaving out the United States, Canada exported merchandise worth only $56.6 billion. Our imports from the world, excluding the United States, equaled $91.8 billion, for an overall trade deficit of $35.2 billion.

Let’s look at some details. Canada buys a third more from the European Union than it sells to the EU. That’s pretty much the story with all our trading partners except the United States. To the end of November last year, we ran up a trade deficit of $13.2 billion with the EU. Our trade deficit with Japan was $1.8 billion. It was $7.7 billion with other OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation) nations and $12.5 billion with everyone else.

Curiously, even though the United States buys a third of everything produced in Canada and ships buckets of money across the border, the Canadian media portrays the United States as a trade bully. On the other hand, Europeans are usually portrayed as fair traders, even though we run a big deficit with Europe.

The trade numbers expose other myths. We often think of Canadians as hewers of wood and drawers of water. But our trade has increasingly moved away from raw materials and towards more advanced products.

To the end of November, we sold a total of $105.9 billion of agricultural, fishing, energy and forestry products, and much of that was at least partially processed. Over the same period, we sold $255.8 billion of industrial goods and materials, machinery and equipment, automotive products, and consumer goods. (The remaining exports are miscellaneous or unclassified).

Canada runs a trade surplus in every single category of goods, but once again only because of our trade with the United States.

One of the disappointing things about the trade debate is how little the media actually discusses the importance of trade, particularly US trade, for the Canadian economy.

You can read hundreds of stories about Canadian nationalists and anti-globalists, all singing the same hymns attacking trade agreements and the United States. All of us would be much poorer, and many of us unemployed, without these trade agreements.