The Alberta and Western Canada export experience under the free trade agreements, 1988-2005

Focus on Alberta • The value of Alberta’s merchandise exports has risen by 509% since the benchmark year of 1988, the year before the inception of the Canada-U. [...] Section one highlights the value of the Western provinces’ exports and the significance of the NAFTA trading partners to Western Canadian Exports. [...] Although the NAFTA was implemented in 1994, the charts and tables in this section extend back to 1988, the year prior to the implementation of the Canada-U. [...] Of the $140 billion in Western Canada’s total exports in 2005, 80.9% went to NAFTA countries, compared to 52.4% of the $40 billion in 1988. [...] Given that the vast majority of Western Canadian exports are destined to the United States, the trends in export values and reasoning are similar to those in Table 1.1.