It is important to recognise that, for almost all the provinces, trade inside Canada has grown fast enough to offset a significant portion of the declines in international trade. Central Canada, for instance, suffered a real decline in international exports of $ billion between 2002 and 2008, which was almost entirely offset by increases in interprovincial exports of $ billion.
Some of this reflects increased sales to Western Canada from Central Canadian machinery makers, primary metal producers, and chemical companies. Much of the gains in interprovincial trade volumes were in services rather than goods, which was where most of the declines in international exports occurred.