 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.Mel Watkins revived the theory during the 1960s and 1970s through his work on resource capitalism and Canadian political economy.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.