Innis argued that Canada developed as it did because of the nature of its staple commodities: raw materials, such as fish, fur, lumber, agricultural products and minerals, that were exported to Britain and the West Indies.
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.
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.
[3] While the staples thesis originally described the evolution of the Canadian state, it has since been used to study the economies of many nations that are dependent upon resource extraction and primary industries.
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.