Under the terms of a data sharing agreement, Canada and the United States both use the other country's import data to produce their export statistics. Both Statistics Canada and the United States Census Bureau (USCB) produce their national import data based on import documentation collected by their respective customs agencies. Canada's export data are therefore sourced from import documentation submitted to the United States Customs and Border Protection. Similarly, US export data are sourced from import documentation submitted to the Canada Border Services Agency. Import documentation is considered to be of higher quality than export documentation because import shipments are subject to greater scrutiny by customs agencies. At the same time, the administrative burden on companies exporting to the United States is reduced, as they are not required to submit export documentation to their national customs agency.
On December 22, 2018, a partial shutdown of the US federal government came into effect, resulting in the closure of certain government agencies, including the USCB. This has a direct impact on Statistics Canada's ability to compile, produce and publish Canadian international merchandise trade data, as Statistics Canada will not receive data on Canada's exports to the United States for the duration of the shutdown...
This has been excerpted from a 17 January 2019 release by Statistics Canada.