Trends in Canada’s international trade in the arts, culture, and heritage between 2010 and 2023
Analysis of national and provincial data
Before digging into the trade data, I want to note that this evening I will be sharing tips and resources on mining public datasets, especially from Statistics Canada, for information about the arts, culture, and heritage. The Toronto-based event is hybrid, so online attendance is also possible. 7pm EST. Information and registration at https://civictech.ca/hacknights/526/
Today’s article examines the following questions:
How has Canada’s cultural trade deficit changed since 2010?
How has Canada’s arts trade surplus or deficit changed since 2010?
Which provinces have had cultural trade surpluses? How has each province’s cultural trade surplus or deficit changed since 2010?
The surpluses and deficits are calculated as cultural exports minus cultural imports and have been adjusted for inflation.
This is the third article in a series related to Statistics Canada’s dataset on exports and imports of the arts, culture, and heritage. Previous articles contained analyses of the most recent data for Canada and the provinces. Next week, I will highlight Canada’s trade surplus or deficit with the United States in culture (overall) and the arts, including trends since 2010.
The arts trade deficit has become a surplus
In keeping with my previous analyses, I am combining selected domains and subdomains into an imperfect but reasonable approximation of “the arts”: live performances, visual arts (including crafts and photography), books, film and video, and sound recording.
In 2023, there was an international trade surplus in the arts of $1.7 billion. Today’s first graph shows that Canada had an arts trade deficit between 2010 and 2019. In 2020, imports of arts goods and services decreased significantly, but arts exports did not decrease at all. This resulted in the first arts trade surplus since 2010, a surplus that has continued through 2023.
