Foreign control in Canadian ag sector still relatively low

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Published: August 2, 2018

Foreign control in the oil and gas extraction sector is up more than 15 per cent since 2012.  Photo: File

CNS Canada – The percentage of foreign control, as a percentage of total assets, in the Canadian agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting sector was 1.6 per cent in 2016, according to data recently released by Statistics Canada.

While that’s up from 1.1 per cent in 2012, it compares with foreign control in all industries (excluding management of companies and enterprises) of 16.2 per cent. That all-industry number was down from 18.5 per cent in 2012.

Foreign control of non-financial industries in Canada was 25 per cent in total in 2016, and 9.5 per cent in the financial and insurance sector.

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After the agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting sector, the education, healthcare, and social assistance sector had the next lowest level of foreign control, at 1.7 per cent.

By comparison, the oil and gas extraction sector was 42.9 per cent under foreign control in 2016. That’s up from 37.4 per cent in 2012.

As a percentage of foreign control in the overall agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting sector, 0.4 per cent was controlled by United States interests, 0.6 per cent by European Union, and 0.7 per cent were controlled by other foreign interests, according to the Statistics Canada report.

The data did not break out separate numbers of agriculture alone.

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