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Innis argues that different staples led to the emergence of regional economies (and societies) within Canada. For instance, the staple commodity in Atlantic Canada was cod. This industry was very decentralized, but also very co-operative. In western Canada the central staple was wheat. Wheat farming was a very independent venture, which led to a history of distrust of government and corporations in that part of the country. (Also important, however, were the shocks caused by volatility in the market for wheat and by the weather itself on the growing season.) In Central Canada, the main staple was fur, and the fur trade dominated the economy for many years. This fur trade was controlled by large firms, such as the Hudson's Bay Company and thus produced the much more centralized, business-oriented society that today characterizes Montreal and Toronto.
Innis depicted the relationship between regions of Canada as one of "heartland" to "hinterland": Core-periphery, or hinterland, is dominated by the core, or heartland. Because the heartland was dependent upon the search for and accumulation of staples (which were located in the hinterland) to perpetuate the economy, it sought to gain economic and political power by exploiting the hinterland. "Staples Theory" in Old Messengers, New Media: The Legacy of Innis and McLuhan, from Library and Archives Canada
To Innis, it was the fur trade that created the geographical boundaries of Canada. The early links between the Canadian interior and eastern ports led to Canadian unity and its distinctiveness from the United States. However, the importance of fur as a staple product also resulted in the northern half of the continent remaining dependent on Britain for trade and thus essentially British for so much of its history.
The staples thesis states that export of raw materials can sustain economic growth, while its critics argue that reliance on commodity export should not delay the development of basic manufacturing and provision of services. Among his strongest critics was Robin Neill who advocated a thesis explaining the economic development of Canada as an expression of variegated regions (population density, cultural politics, geographic characteristics) and of their particular north-south relationships with the United States.
Historians continue to use elements of the Innis core-periphery model, applying it for example to British Columbia. That province's economic structure exemplifies the core-periphery structure of intra-regional relationships in the following manner: the core is metropolitan Vancouver, with its concentration of corporate management and transportation functions and manufacturing growth; Vancouver dominates an underdeveloped periphery that depends on production and export of staple commodities.Thomas A. Hutton, "The Innisian core-periphery revisited: Vancouver's changing relationships with British Columbia's staple economy." BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly 113 (1997): 69-100. online
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