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.
I’m not Canadian but I greatly support these measures, so if I may I’d like to weigh in.
I think that manufacturing country and ultimate ownership are probably the biggest key factors, as they dictate most where the lion’s share of money flows in a consumer economy. For example, if there’s American investment/VC/private equity for a company but it’s like 10%, it’s not great but definitely not as bad as a completely international company with locations in Canada.
If you want to get super fine-gained, you can even dig into whether a company outsources a significant portion of its auxiliary labor (e.g. digital infrastructure, customer support, shipping) to international firms, as that can make a difference as well.
Component sourcing is also important but there are a lot of cases where domestic isn’t as feasible due to global supply chain reasons. That’s one that’s going to be much more industry specific. Like, if you’re buying furniture and the wood comes from abroad when there’s a robust domestic timber industry in your country, I think that should be a red flag.
Coming to a final determination on any company is going to be one of those things that exists on a sliding scale and probably would benefit from some sort of scoring effort. Either way, my verdict is that any measure that boycotts the US is worth the effort if it’s done by enough people. Even a few loonies per person spent on local vs international over a broad enough group will make a noticeable impact.
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I’m not Canadian but I greatly support these measures, so if I may I’d like to weigh in.
I think that manufacturing country and ultimate ownership are probably the biggest key factors, as they dictate most where the lion’s share of money flows in a consumer economy. For example, if there’s American investment/VC/private equity for a company but it’s like 10%, it’s not great but definitely not as bad as a completely international company with locations in Canada.
If you want to get super fine-gained, you can even dig into whether a company outsources a significant portion of its auxiliary labor (e.g. digital infrastructure, customer support, shipping) to international firms, as that can make a difference as well.
Component sourcing is also important but there are a lot of cases where domestic isn’t as feasible due to global supply chain reasons. That’s one that’s going to be much more industry specific. Like, if you’re buying furniture and the wood comes from abroad when there’s a robust domestic timber industry in your country, I think that should be a red flag.
Coming to a final determination on any company is going to be one of those things that exists on a sliding scale and probably would benefit from some sort of scoring effort. Either way, my verdict is that any measure that boycotts the US is worth the effort if it’s done by enough people. Even a few loonies per person spent on local vs international over a broad enough group will make a noticeable impact.