Canada's cultural exports and imports in 2022
A deep dive into the most recent national data
Today’s post delves into recently released data on revenues and expenses for the export and import of cultural goods and services in 2022.
The data relate to cultural products and are therefore similar to the macroeconomic statistics that I analyzed last month (using the product perspective), although the trade dataset (2022) is more than a year behind the broader economic dataset (2023). My first post in the macroeconomic series is here, and I analyzed provincial data for 2022 in early July.
The bulk of today’s post digs into the 2022 trade statistics for various areas of culture, including an imperfect but reasonable approximation of “the arts”. But first, I summarize key statistics on overall cultural trade that have been provided by Statistics Canada.
$25 billion in cultural exports
Statistics Canada’s summary of the trade dataset highlighted some key statistics:
Canada exported cultural goods and services worth $24.5 billion in 2022.
Canada imported $31.9 billion of cultural products in 2022, resulting in a cultural trade deficit of $7.3 billion (after rounding).
Cultural goods and services represented 2.6% of all exports and 3.4% of all imports in 2022.
Today’s first graph highlights these basic facts about cultural trade.
By my calculation, the cultural trade deficit represents 30% of all cultural exports in 2022. In other words, Canadians spent 30% more on cultural goods and services from abroad than we exported.
In their summary, StatsCan noted that “Most culture commodities that can be distributed digitally, such as interactive media and music publishing, have surpassed their pre-pandemic levels, while primarily in-person commodities, such as culture heritage, natural heritage, performing arts, and festivals and celebrations, have yet to fully recover. Film and video also exceeded pre-pandemic levels because of a backlog of previously delayed projects.”
Data sources
The dataset is based on multiple sources, including surveys and administrative filings by cultural businesses, organizations, and individuals. As just one example, here is the main export-related question from the performing arts survey:
During the reporting period [of x to y], did this business receive revenue from clients outside Canada for the sale of products, services, royalties, rights, licensing or franchise fees?
If the respondent answered yes, they were asked follow-up questions regarding revenues from their exports and the percentage breakdowns of exports by country as well as into 1) goods; 2) services; and 3) royalties, rights, licensing and franchise fees.
The series of questions related to imports is identical to the above, except that the questions refer to “payments to suppliers outside Canada” rather than “revenue from clients outside Canada”.
Note: Statistics Canada also publishes data on interprovincial trade in cultural goods and services, but that dataset only covers up to 2020. Because it is so old, I’m not including it here.
Future articles will examine international trade into and from each province, as well as trends in cultural trade since 2010.
Trade by type of cultural good or service
The rest of this article digs deeper into the 2022 data for the value of exports, imports, and trade surplus or deficit for specific types of cultural products, including visual arts, performing arts, film and video, books, and more.