Why interoperability should now be treated as trade infrastructure Canada has spent generations building the infrastructure that moves trade. Ports. Railways. Roads. Airports. Terminals. Border crossings. Those assets remain fundamental. But another layer is becoming just as important to whether a shipment actually moves efficiently: the information, records, approvals and evidence that have to move with it. That is why I believe we need to broaden the way we define a Canadia

Canada's 2026 Spring Economic Update commits to trade diversification, sovereign capacity, and strategic infrastructure. The diagnosis is right. But policy ambition without execution infrastructure leaves Canadian SMEs unable to use the corridors Canada is opening. The gap is not ambition. It is the missing layer between trade agreements and trade activity.

Canada's trade diversification challenge is not primarily a policy problem — the agreements exist. What is missing is the execution infrastructure that allows Canadian SMEs to use them. TransPacific Trade Nexus (TPTN) is a Canada-first sovereign digital trade infrastructure initiative designed to close that gap: automating compliance, enabling standards-aligned electronic transferable records, and making free trade agreements executable for SMEs.