Patricia Sheehan is a regular shopper at Metro.”It would be helpful if stores made it clearer on which products and produce are Canadian. Thank goodness the bananas are not from the U.S.!”
By Don Lawrence
As the U.S. threat of tariffs on Canadian products looms, the new “Choose Canada” conversation is resonating like never before within Centennial households. It’s about buying Canadian goods and supporting local and domestic services, and it seems to be catching on. It’s also about steering clear of American brands as much as possible
A Leger survey from February 10 found that 84 percent of women said they would boost purchases of Canadian goods, echoed by 78 percent of men. People aged 55 and over were more likely to endorse a “buy Canadian” approach at 88 percent, and those between the ages of 18 and 34 agreed at 74 percent. Interestingly, only 28 percent of Canadians said they have or will be cancelling their subscriptions to American streaming services, compared with 34 percent who say they will not be cancelling them.
While the data shows that Canadians are overwhelmingly in favour of buying Canadian (stream-ing services aside), figuring out which products are domestically made may not be as straightforward. Labels that proclaim “Product of Canada” mean products are made from at least 98 percent Canadian ingredients or materials. “Made in Canada” signifies the product has at least 51 percent domestic ingredients or materials.
A list of Canadian-made products and services is imperative. We found that www.madeinca.ca provides one of the best resources, continuously updating the names of Canadian-owned companies. Plus, they have a grocery store guide to help choose Canadian products when shopping for groceries.
BCI Foods Inc., a soup manufacturer based in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, says they want to take advantage of this “Choose Canada” moment to better compete with well-known American brands like Campbell’s, the number-one player in the market. Both BCI’s Aylmer and Primo soup brands are made in Canada and are packaged in Canadian-made steel cans.
Perhaps Wayne Gretzky, on his next trip to Mar-a Lago, will tell the U.S. president to leave Canada alone. Until then, we may be in for a tumultuous time.
Canadians dominate international arrivals in Florida
In mid-August,Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that his state had logged a record-breaking 34.2 million visitors in the second quarter of 2024 – and he attributed a large share of that ranking to Canadian snowbirds, singling out the 739,000 Canadian visits during that three-month period alone. Canada’s annual contribution stands out dramatically, with 3.23 million visits accounting for 28 percent of all foreign visitors to Florida. Next in line was the U.K. with 9 percent.
An opinion article in the Tampa Bay Times stated: When our friends fight, one common
reaction is, “What the heck just happened?” Th e second is, “How is this going to aff ect us?” In this case, “us” is Florida. Th e columnist goes on to say “the market is important enough that the county’s tourism booster targeted its seasonal advertising campaign at Canada, not U.S. cities in the Midwest and Northeast. “There is definitely a large number of snowbirds who have a negative sentiment at the moment,” he said. “How that will translate, we won’t know for a while.”
It’s your money and your choice, so consider this leverage and try to spend more of your tourism dollars in Canada.