International and other extra-territorial public administration

Foreign embassies and consulates in Canada and the offices of international bodies: 73 establishments, 55% with fewer than ten employees [A]. This is a buyer, not a market to enter: the activity is a function of a foreign state, carried out by its own officials under its own law, and no licence, acquisition or amount of capital lets a private entrant perform it. They are extraterritorial by definition — staffed, funded and governed from elsewhere, and often outside Canadian employment and tax rules. What they buy locally is ordinary: leased premises, security, translation, travel, catering, vehicles. None of that is a distinct market; it is a small set of customers for businesses screened elsewhere. The cut factor is recorded as entry cost and regulatory drag because that is the nearest the screening model comes to 'not available to private parties' — the barrier is not high, it is absolute, and everything interesting is in what gets sold across it. The buyer set is published, and it is not the 73 employers Statistics Canada records: Global Affairs Canada's Office of Protocol accredits 189 diplomatic missions — 133 of them resident — 480 consular posts, 26 international organisations and close to 8,000 diplomatic agents [A]. Even that overstates what is reachable, because a large mission's guarding, secure construction and IT are bought under its own state's global framework and its Canadian footprint is a lease and a handful of locally engaged staff. And the door is held from the Canadian side: a foreign state cannot open a post here without the written approval of the Government of Canada, granted on a stated justification, a two-year staffing plan and confirmation of no outstanding debts in Canada, including unpaid property taxes [A].