Website promoting Canadian companies gains interest ahead of trade war

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In recent weeks, prevailing advice for Canadian consumers feeling powerless in a trade war with the United States has been to shop local and buy Canadian products.

Across social media platforms, quickly proliferating lists instruct people what U.S.-made or owned products to avoid and point to alternatives “made in Canada.”

Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged people to “choose Canada.”

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What many may not know, however, is that a lot of the heavy lifting in identifying Canadian-owned companies as a way to skirt a U.S. President Donald Trump-imposed tariff has already been done for them.

Back in 2018, Ontario teenager Tyler Campbell, along with father and uncle, started madeinca.ca in response to tariffs enacted two years into Trump’s first presidency.

Wanting to promote a made-right-here movement, they built a website that categorizes almost all consumer goods and indexes companies that sell them in Canada.

Each listing indicates whether the business is Canadian-owned and -operated, if it’s foreign-owned but manufacturing here, or Canadian-owned but selling products made elsewhere, either in full or in part.

The non-monetized site quickly gained popularity at the time with hundreds of submissions from users, per CTV, but by 2022 the founders were ready to move on and sold it to Dylan Lobo, a regular contributor.

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Since then, the 22-year-old small business digital media consultant from Toronto has continued the yeoman’s work of personally fielding user submissions, anywhere from five to 10 daily, and verifying each individually before publishing.

At 15 to 20 minutes apiece, Lobo was content to sacrifice his free time.

“This is my passion project,” he told the National Post on Monday. “I really support the movement, so I do it in my free time. I come home and I work on the website for the rest of the day and then I go to sleep.”

The website now counts more than 1,200 individual companies selling an untold number of products.

Over the last few weeks, as Trump’s threat of 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian imports became more deliberate, Lobo says he’s been flooded with over 5,000 submissions.

“I’ve never had so many emails in my life.”

Most will be vetted out, but it’s still a gargantuan task for one man.

“It’ll probably be nice if we had more support from the government to continue this kind of initiative because if I just have to continue on my own, it’s going to be pretty hard because it’s going to take so long to get to through all these listings.”

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He said he’s already written to members of parliament inquiring about financial assistance. He’d also like to make a smartphone app, but the cost is too high and data availability from stores is limited.

On Monday afternoon, Trump and Trudeau came to an agreement to pause “proposed tariffs” for 30 days.

Guiding consumers to Canadian choices

With more visitors came more complaints, however, and Lobo heeded criticism of the category format — which even he admits makes it hard to find specific types of products — and created a grocery store guide.

It’s a shopping list separated by Canadian companies and those that simply manufacture here, which allows users “to source grocery items and brands produced and manufactured right here in Canada,” per the website.

In compiling the guide, an estimated 20-30 hour job, Lobo said he made sure to give prominence to the major brands many people likely aren’t aware are Canadian-made and probably already on their shopping radar.

He plans to make more guides including one for clothing, footwear and other main Canadian manufacturing sectors.

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“If 100,000 people visited the website, probably 50,000 or 60,000 wanted to read the guide because it was more elaborate, it went through all the different brands, it was easier to digest on one page than going from page to page, listing to listing.”

Made in Canada v. Product of Canada

The guide is also a resource for differentiating between something made in Canada versus a product of Canada.

Lobo said the latter is “more Canadian.”

As explained on madeinca.ca and similarly by Canada’s Competition Bureau, to be a product of the country, “the last substantial transformation of the good occurred in Canada” and “at least 98 per cent of the total direct costs of producing or manufacturing” it were incurred here.

“Made in Canada means it has at least 51 per cent or more of Canadian content,” Lobo added. “So that means the last factoring process or transformative step was done in Canada, but the materials could have been sourced from elsewhere.”

The label will usually say something to the effect of “Made in Canada with imported parts” or “Made in Canada with domestic and imported parts” and could also include more specific information about the percentage of Canadian and non-Canadian content used.

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Lobo’s own advice for consumers who want to join the movement is to pay closer attention to the information on labels and, as everyone says, shop local.

“Instead of shopping at a big box retailer, if you shop at your local grocer you’ll probably have more options for local manufacturers because they’re more involved in the community,” he said as an example.

And while you might pay more than you would have for the U.S.-made equivalent, you just might like it.

“And if you don’t that’s fine, try something different. There are so many other products on the marketplace.”

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