In response to the US going off the rails, I’m seeing lots of push to buy Canadian products as much as possible and I love it.
But it’s never that simple, is it?
Easiest case: You can buy leather bags and wallets from Adrian Klis. These are made in Canada, by a Canadian company, from Canadian materials (Buffalo hide leather).
Unfortunately, neither manufacturing or ownership are that straightforward most of the time.
- Creemore Springs is a small brewery in Ontario, using local product and brewing locally. AND they’re owned by the Molson Coors Beverage Company - a cross-border multinational.
- Likewise, Canada Goose (winter jackets) is now owned by Bain Capital in the USA.
- A lot of us use Melitta filters in our drip coffee makers. Melitta is a German company that manufactures in the USA. (FYI, Technivorm filters are manufactured and headquarted in The Netherlands.)
- Coca Cola is unabashedly American, and has backed militant extremists in other countries; but the bottle of coke you buy in the store likely came from one of their five bottling plants in Canada, bottled by a Canadian.
- Aylmer’s soups are Canadian through-and-through. Everything other than soup under the Aylmer brand and logo is now owned by Conagra.
- Everyone knows that Costco is American, but they’ve also got a long history of paying above average, giving better than average benefits, and standing up to the excesses of capitalism and fascism.
- Of course, “Canadian” is no guarantee of “good” either for products or for companies. Loblaws has spent decades gouging customers (often illegally) and Shopify’s executives are advocating for a Canadian DOGE.
I’m not suggesting for a second we throw our hands up in the air and give up, but I’d like to see a bit more clarity on all of the “Buy Canadian” lists.
- Country of manufacture.
- Country of components.
- Company headquarters.
- Ultimate company ownership.
None of this is going to be as easy as “buy the thing with a maple leaf” but we need to be more aware of how we’re supporting the US or other economies, either deliberately or inadvertently.
Don’t forget, the majority of our news outlets are owned by Postmedia, which is 66% owned by Chatham Asset Management, which is in turn owned by Anthony Malchiorre. Malchiorre and CAM are well known GOP mouthpieces.
What we do about this…idk…
Yup. And we aren’t going to be 100% and mistakes will be made. The important this is we just keep putting effort into it the boycott will get stronger and stronger as we learn more about where products are made. And really most of the effort is going to be in the beginning, once you’ve figured out what your new preferred brands are, it starts getting easier.
A little tip I find useful… look at the products in your cupboards and take note of which products are US and which are not. It’s a lot more chill to do this at home than in the grocery store. Makes grocery shopping go a little faster when you don’t have to look at the labels of everything while in the store.
And really most of the effort is going to be in the beginning, once you’ve figured out what your new preferred brands are, it starts getting easier.
This is an EXCELLENT point, and I really want to emphasize it as much as possible. We’re changing our habits at the moment, and that’s hard as hell to do. Once we’ve changed them, then maintenance and tweaks are trivial in comparison.
After a few months of tariffs, it’s going to be very obvious which products have American components, as their prices rise dramatically next to the unaffected all-Canadian equivalents.
This thing has the Maple leaf. Must mean it’s made in Canada from our famous home grown Canadian Oranges.
Yeah stores have gotten really lazy about what they slap these things on.
It’s not laziness, it’s cynical opportunism.
You KNOW that the Westons are dumping tons of money into astroturfing this “Canada First” bullshit.
Oh, they are. On my only remaining corporate social media feed (Facebook, because that’s where my mom sees my stuff), I’m constantly getting bombarded with Superstore ads, where some manager is talking about a great Canadian brand they carry.
Fuckers.
They fuck us harder than the Americans, and now we’re lining up for the privilege.
Bots that three months ago were raging against Trudeau like he personally shat on their keyboards are today extolling saccharine praises for everything Canadian. Because perversely that is currently a better angle for creating conflict and disharmony among Western democracies. And boy are we there for it. Everybody loves us again, it’s like the 90s all over. Except Canada is still the same colonialist country, nothing but a bank, a communication company and an oil company stacked in a trenchcoat. Don’t believe the bullshit.
Maybe one approach could be to avoid American wherever possible, but without inconveniencing yourself too much. So for example only buy on Amazon after you’ve tried to find other suppliers first. And yes definitely figure out how American any given product is, check the alternatives and buy the lesser of the available evils.
One question is if there is something needed on Amazon is it the lesser evil to go get it from aliexpress instead cutting out the middleman and going direct from what is most likely from China anyways?
If you’re buying a Chinese product then yes of course.
Just buy the most Canadian thing you can find. If it’s made in Canada, it still means part of the supply chain is in Canada and supporting Canadian businesses.
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Absolutely. I just wanted to bring some additional awareness to what makes something “the most Canadian” (or alternatively “the least US”); and that it may be (a) more complex than a ‘yes/no’ checkmark, and (b) possibly different from person to person.
It’s great that you’ve pointed this out and I hope there’s more awareness about it. In practice, it’s not hard: Buy from candian-owned small businesses who manufacture in Canada.
In my not-at-all-humble opinion, most of your examples are all shit you shouldn’t be buying in the first place:
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We have copious amounts of local craft beer. Never buy the big brands, they’re all swill. If you actually drink craft beer, you’ll know which brands, like Creemore and Millstreet, are fake craft.
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Nobody should be buying anything from Coca-Cola in the 21st century. We’ve known pop is terrible for your health for like 50 years. They’re a shit company who is the biggest polluter of plastics in the world.
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Canada Goose is for tools with no taste. By the time any trendy fashion company gets bought out, it’s not cool anymore.
All we have to do as a nation is just put that little extra effort into learning about what we’re buying and making different choices, and it’s actually great that we’re all doing that because we should have been doing it all along.
Well, they were examples. I’m sorry you didn’t like them.
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It’s complicated and there are plenty of gray areas, but you can’t throw the baby out with the bath water either. You can always adjust tack with new information.
If the company is Canadian, then they’re paying Canadian taxes. Like, we don’t make rice in Canada but I’ll buy from 555 which is a local importer instead of Uncle Ben. Or for example, I try to buy Canadian soap but if I can’t, I buy French brands.
I buy Canadian first, anything but US second, any effort is good, there’s no way you’re gonna have a 100% local economy anyway…
The whole idea of the movement is to buy more consciously.
If the company is Canadian, then they’re paying Canadian taxes.
Except that big companies don’t pay taxes anyway. 🙃
Yes, tax avoidance is an issue and the bigger the company the bigger the issue. Supporting smaller local businesses as much as you can is the best option.
I thought Spider-Man handled Uncle Ben already
No, but Aunt May did.
This only matters for perfectionists in an all or nothing sense. If you give the USA $0.60 for every $1 you used to it will hurt their economy.
I feel like I didn’t make my point as clearly as I hoped.
It’s absolutely not all or nothing, and it’s not “oh this product is only 93% acceptable so screw it.” I just want people to look beyond a big fat maple leaf on the grocery store shelf and make some personal value decisions on what matters to them more.
My reasoning for buying product x might be different than your reasoning for buying product y, but I hope that we both put some thought into making the best decision for ourselves.
Yeah, I just know people who are very all or nothing. “If I can’t become a perfect vegan, I might as well not try at all and get a meat lovers pizza” when usually even reducing what you do can have a big impact when done by many people.
I know it’s easier said than done. I also believe in not making perfect the enemy of good. I’d rather have the whole population of Canada doing as much as they can, even if it means still buying certain American products on occasion, than only a few people making a 100% break.
In a globalized economy it’s really difficult and nearly impossible to buy something completely made in Canada from start to finish.
I don’t think there’s a single tannery left in Canada at this point, so you might get a nice leather jacket made in Canada, but the Hyde was tanned in the U.S. or elsewhere.
I could be wrong. Doesn’t matter though, we as Canadians need to start manufacturing our products back here in this great nation and work with countries that aren’t the US that stand for free trade and democracy.
The U.S. at this point is no longer a partner, friend, or ally. We can do better Canada! We will do better!!
There are a few tanneries left, although not many. It’s a messy, toxic process that is often performed in countries with laxer environmental standards.
But your point is well taken. If a garment maker has to bring in leather (or another material), I’d like to know if it’s from China, USA, India, or the UK before making my decision.
If you do an internet search for “Canadian tanneries” you will find several.
Oh this is good to know. Thanks for the correction!!
I am fine with certain other countries being involved. I will do whatever I can to avoid US anything though
Exactly. I “don’t buy American” rather than “buy Canadian” for the most part. No need to punish our other trading partners. We need to support them too.
A big one is getting people to stop shopping at Loblaw-owned businesses. There is a daily barrage of complaints, rants, and vents about how awful Loblaw is and yet people keep shopping there. I worked for them for 4 years - and I experienced firsthand how many customers expressed disgust at the company and yet returned literally the next day. And the day after. And the week after. And the month after. I live in an area with a LARGE amount of alternative grocery stores and yet they kept returning.
I understand that not everybody lives with alternative grocery stores nearby, but there are still other options. Local butchers, dairy producers, bakeries, produce markets, etc. Many of which will even do delivery or advanced ordering for quick pickup. And they might even be cheaper and certainly better quality!
The parasitic scum that are sucking us dry are not just American. They are Canadian too and people need to start taking that seriously.
I sincerely wish I could drop loblaws entirely.
The problem is, between them and sobey’s (who are proving to be just as evil, recently doing things like covering ‘made in us’ labels, union busting after they bought Safeway, etc) there aren’t any other places to shop.
In my town, there is 1 loblaws store, 2 gas station corner stores and 2 independent corner stores - guess which is the only one that carries meat and produce?
In the next town over, there are 2 loblaws, 1 sobeys, 4 gas station corner stores, and 4 specialty shops - again, guess where I have to go for produce, or a wider selection of meat cuts/types?
If I want to buy from stores that aren’t loblaws or sobeys, I have to drive 4 hours to my closest Costco (which i do every 4 months, because Costco is so much cheaper than local it pays for my gas easily), and even then the only other not loblaws/sobeys option in that town is fucking walmart.
What Canada needs isn’t a better loblaws boycott, it needs a government willing to put in place and enforce checks and balances on the duopolies Canada has in every sector - and stop letting foreign investors own all of our assets and funnel the profits out of country while we’re at.
union busting after they bought Safeway
Just an FYI here, it was Sobey’s/Empire that bought Safeway, not Loblaws.
Yes, that was included in the same sentence you quoted.
Honestly I buy local as much as I can but when I do my ‘big’ shops I’m still going to Costco. I don’t care that they’re American, I’m still putting my faith in them over Loblaws.
All my fresh produce is from local stores and I only buy used otherwise. I’m doing my best but I fucking hate Loblaws.
Perfect example of what I’m talking about. Sometimes the best solution involves buying from an American company. Hopefully not often, but reality is complicated.
Guess you can say it’s not exactly… Canada Dry…
Disintetested 3rd Party Man away!
Although that hasn’t been Canadian for like 15 years
