Can shrewd shopping truly help Canada push back on economic threats from the United States?
If you believe the rhetoric from some political leaders, every little bit helps — especially if consumers pay closer attention to labels.
“When you look at ‘made in Canada’ or ‘made in Ontario’ products — buy them,” said Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who is about to call an early election partly, he says, to shore up his efforts against the looming threat of U.S. tariffs.
“Make sure we send a message to big retailers. Costco, Sobeys, Walmart, Metro and Loblaws. Buy Canadian products.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has suggested substituting Canadian-made products could help mitigate the impact of wide-ranging tariffs that U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened.
“Having Canadian consumers have alternatives… is part of how we make sure that Canadians do not bear undue costs around tariffs,” Trudeau said this week.
U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking by video to people gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, argued that other countries, including Canada, are taking advantage of the U.S. He also repeated claims that the U.S. doesn’t need anything from Canada.
But observers say the reality of the country’s present-day economy is that it’s not easy to find Canadian products across a variety of sectors.
“We don’t do a lot of the final consumer good processing in Canada,” said Torsten Søcthing Jaccard, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver School of Economics. “We produce a lot of the raw inputs.”
Daniel Trefler, a trade economist and professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management doubts that such an approach will yield appreciable results.
“The focus on consumer-facing goods will get us nowhere,” he said in an email.
Complex economy
Domestic industries would welcome any potential increase in business from a push to buy Canadian.
But even manufacturers admit that the complex and modern Canadian economy operates differently than it did decades ago, in the era before free trade, and that such an effort could only go so far in reducing the pain that tariffs would bring.
“Because of the size of our market, Canadians buying Canadian-made products… will not offset the potential losses if things are restricted into the U.S. market,” said Dennis Darby, president and CEO of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, whose organization represents 2,500 manufacturers across the country.
He easily lists a number of products that are made in Canada — various foods and beverages, pet food, cosmetics, furniture and more — but says that doesn’t mean you can get a domestically produced version of everything.
“You can’t go buy a Canadian-made dishwasher, because we don’t make dishwashers anymore,” said Darby, noting that domestic manufacturers are more likely to produce parts for such products that get readied for market state-side.
Consumers are also aware of how hard it can be to find Canadian-made products in certain categories.
For Deb Kroeger, a retiree from Ontario’s Muskoka region, an example that springs to mind is clothing.
“On a broad scale there is not so much [Canadian-made stock],” Kroeger said, noting that when her now-grown son was young, she was able to buy him a sporty Chicago Bulls jacket that had been made in Quebec.
UBC’s Jaccard said that trying to determine the Canadian content of a particular good “is not so simple” nowadays, amid a highly integrated North American economy that often sees involvement from companies on both sides of the border to get products to consumers.
What about groceries?
The possible mid-winter arrival of U.S. tariffs also means Canada is not in a position to source the same kind of homegrown produce available at other times of the year.
So buying Canadian might not be an option, depending on what you’re looking for — and that’s aside from any consideration of price.
“I know in January you can’t get a radish grown in North Bay,” said Glen Huard, a recent retiree from that northern Ontario city, who sees the tariff threat as a “wake-up call” for the country.
Ron Lemaire, the president of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, points out that even though berries aren’t growing outdoors at this time of year either, Canadians aren’t restricting their fruit-and-vegetable intake to solely what grows here.
“We can’t grow citrus in Canada,” for example, said Lemaire, so Canada relies on produce imports to meet the wide demand for various fruits and vegetables across the country.
He says while Canadians are “very fond of domestic produce,” the costs of those goods are ultimately what drive decisions on what to buy.
Huard concurs.
“If a bundle of carrots tripled in price, then we might go to a different vegetable,” he said.
A boost for some?
Huard would like to see more effort made to highlight the available stock of Canadian products at stores.
“I don’t think it needs to be overly elaborate,” he said, suggesting having a characteristic sticker with a maple leaf would be a simple method of achieving this.
If a “Buy Canada” movement were to emerge, it would likely have some impact on the bottom line of some businesses.
Raina Husseini, senior vice president of print at Indigo Books & Music Inc., says the bookseller has long promoted the work of Canadian authors and publishers — and it’s aware the current political climate may increase interest in these products.
“The importance of buying local and Canadian was really highlighted during the peak COVID years and we are anticipating that it may be again with American tariffs being discussed,” Husseini told CBC News in an emailed statement.
Furniture retailer Urban Barn, which operates more than 50 stores across the country, has come to a similar conclusion.
“Should tariffs be imposed, we would anticipate Canadians will choose to shop at Canadian retailers including ourselves, versus our American competition,” Ainslie Fincham, the company’s director of marketing, said via email.
Two other large Canadian retailers did not signal any planned changes to their business despite the tariff threat.
Richia McCutcheon, the manager of public relations for Home Hardware, says the retailer remains fixated on the needs of its customers “regardless of political context.” Yet she highlighted the chain’s Ontario-produced BeautiTone paint products as a continuing “key focus.”
Discount retailer Giant Tiger declined to detail its business strategy, but said it has long been focused on “offering products at the lowest possible price.” As such, it works with “a wide variety of Canadian vendor partners and suppliers” to deliver on that promise.
