Leaders from Western Canada, including B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, talked about the importance of a diversified economy during a teleconference chaired by Wall Tuesday.

In particular the premiers noted the value of increasing trade with markets beyond the United States.

"British Columbia has led the way on this," Wall told reporters. "They're the least dependent on the United States for their exports. We're [Saskatchewan] second least dependent. And even at that, it's a 60 per cent dependency on the U.S. So we believe a focus on Asia is key."

While the western provinces rely heavily on resources, the downturn in energy prices adds urgency to the importance of a diversified economy.

"We're talking about oil obviously," Wall said. "It's gone up and down, and I remember in 2009 it touched under $40 at the time and the province continued to grow. We're pretty fortunate in Saskatchewan. We've been lucky to have a more diversified economy in terms of other resources."

Clark said other markets have been a boon for B.C., which is seeing significant growth in the Pacific Rim and especially China.

She suggested that isn't anything new since western provinces have been at the whim of fluctuating commodity prices for years.

"It's lessons learned. Not just in the wake of the oil price crash, which had less impact on British Columbia, but in the wake of some of the other changes that we've seen in the natural gas market," she said. "By now I think most Canadians know that we do need to have diversified economies to protect against it."

Wall said agriculture and potash are helping to pay the bills in Saskatchewan, while Clark said forestry and liquefied natural gas will help make ends meet in B.C.

The provincial and territorial leaders also expressed strong support for federal efforts to encourage the United States to act on a recent World Trade Organization ruling to bring an end to country-of-origin labelling of meat products.

Wall said the call was attended by everyone except Alberta's new Premier Rachel Notley, who was busy with the swearing-in of her new government in Edmonton.

"We had Alberta officials certainly on the call and I understand what's happening in Alberta is some significant change," said Wall. "We had arranged for the time to accommodate everybody, but apparently the swearing-in ceremony was going to be a little bit later than they thought."

The conference is an annual meeting of leaders of Canada's four western provinces and three territories.

