The fishing fleets and explorers who probed the coasts and inland waterways of what is now Canada in the 1500s were agents of European business enterprises and their contacts with native peoples were essentially commercial transactions. From that time to the present, business has played a central role in the development of Canada; and Canadian business has been inextricably linked to trans-Atlantic and global markets. This book draws on a generation of new scholarship to trace the history of business institutions in Canada, and the complex web of trade, investment, technology and ideas that connect Canadian business development to the evolution of capitalism in Europe and North America over the past 500 years. Within this framework, the authors explore the role of entrepreneurs, financial promoters, politicians and government bureaucrats, small businesses and multinational corporations in shaping a distinctive Canadian business system.