Ever since madness descended on the continent, I’ve been doing my best to “shop Canadian”. That has meant forgoing celery, as it’s almost always from the US, and spending much longer at the store checking labels. If you’re fortunate enough to live near farms, as I do, there is an abundance of clearly Canadian produce to revel in. Alas, there’s also Canadian winter and a distinct shortage of greenhouse capacity. But I digress. I really like this comment from Mark Carney’s September video, so have clipped it here, for your enjoyment. I kept the opener, just for fun. Building on the national mood, it didn’t take long for producers of virtually everything to see the advantage in selling Canadian to Canadians. Perhaps the most discussed and painful example is our beloved Tim Horton’s, the “double double” test of Canadian identity. Yes, the company has a rich and very patriotic history, founded in Hamilton Ontario by hockey player Tim Horton and grown up to be a national institution after Horton’s death in ‘74. Where we part national company, however, is in 2014 when Timmy’s was merged with Burger King in an $11.4 billion deal backed by a Brazilian-American investment firm, 3G Capital. The spin-off company now owns Tim’s, Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs. All in that’s around 33,000 restaurants in over 120 countries with $49 billion in annual sales. Funnily enough, or maybe not funny at all, it’s that huge sales tally which prompted the entity to put their HQ in Oakville, wait for it…..for tax reasons. Just last year the president of Tim Hortons Canada and US said the chain was looking to replace US suppliers with Canadian ones, to reduce tariff cost exposure saying, “We will make it even more Canadian”. It seems to be paying off as more and more of us are driving through daily. And we’re torn between the cultural attachment, driven by relentless marketing, and the facts of ownership. Unlike Tim’s, Molson Coors is not a daily ritual for most of us. Molson merged with the AmericanCoors Co. in 2005 to form Molson Coors Beverage Company, headquartered in the distinctly not Canadian city of Chicago. The majority American parent company is running a massive “Made by Canadians” campaign for the Molson Canadian brand. You decide. Lay’s potato chips are made in Canada from Canadian potatoes, by a company owned by Pepsico. Where do you want to draw the line? It’s tough to be purer than Caesar’s wife when it comes to many products and services. And there’s the rub! When you decide to buy or not to buy, what do you look for and care about? If you care about Canadian employment you want to know where the product or service is made, employing who, exactly? If you’re more concerned about your colourful Canadian bills flowing across the border, you care more about ownership. And that’s where things get very complex. For example, what’s the difference between Product of Canada and Made in Canada? Glad you asked. "Product of" is the strict one, meaning virtually all Canadian. "Made in" means finished here, not necessarily grown or sourced here. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency defines both terms and doesn’t weigh in on diapers, blankets, children’s shoes or hair products. For anything that isn't food, it's the Competition Bureau that sets the rules, under the Competition Act, the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act, and the Textile Labelling Act, and these thresholds are actually stricter than they are for food. To be labelled “Product of Canada” under these acts, the item’s last substantial transformation must have happened in Canada, and at least 98% of total direct production costs were incurred in Canada. For “Made in Canada” designation, the last few stitches had to be done in Canada and at least 51% of production costs were incurred in Canada. The label also has to disclose foreign content so you’ll often see the words, “made in Canada with imported parts”. By the way, slapping a red maple leaf on the packaging or label essentially makes a claim for “Made in Canada”, at least so far as the Competition Bureau is concerned. And while the thresholds are stricter than those for food, the enforcement is not as stringent. Since the onset of tariff fever, your phone’s online store has exploded with various apps to help you fly the maple leaf in your shopping cart. Many of these upstarts have since collapsed but there are some viable options should you choose to double click to install. I started to pull together a list of all the related apps on my phone’s app store, to compare how they derive their ratings, and realized it would take me until the end of time to make it happen so I readily admit I turned to my robot friend for this nifty chart of the six solid apps which actually seem to exist. Because there are more of them than there are me, Canadian Press did just this kind of comparison recently and determined the top three above are the best in class, should you wish to avail yourself. Happily, there are some places where it’s easy to buy Canadian with no doubts. One of them is fish. Adam Pearl and Geoff Austin grew up fishing together off the coast of Vancouver Island. In July of 2002, on their way home from prawning, they hit a riptide on the north coast of the island and the 53 foot boat capsized and sank, forcing the two to swim out of an overturned vessel in frigid waters. They figured it was time to move inland for a bit, open a fish shop, and raise families. They found their destination in Nelson, BC on the shores of Kootenay Lake which is almost big enough to qualify as an ocean. Fisherman’s Market has just launched a clever marketing campaign to entice us to buy Canadian seafood, with a twist. They’re not invoking patriotism or anti-US-ism, they’re telling stories which give us a reason to care. Here’s Adam Pearl. If you normally buy your fish at the local grocery store, rather than a specialty fish shop, you can still ask the question, where is this from? Nothing performatively Canuck about Good Leaf Farms who practice indoor, vertical farming in Montreal, Guelph and Calgary. The company was founded on the opposite coast, in Truro, Nova Scotia by entrepreneur Gregg Curwin, in 2011. A few years later the New Brunswick giant, McCain Foods invested and eventually became the largest shareholder with an investment exceeding $65 million CDN. Farm Credit Canada joined the ranks in 2025. Export Development Canada is in the mix, as is Power Sustainable, owned by the Desmarais family of Montreal. So, two crown corporations and a couple big time Canadian families; you can’t get much more north of 49 than this. Closer to me geographically, there’s Up Vertical farms of Pitt Meadows, BC. It is founded and owned by brothers Bahram and Shahram Rashti who describe their system as Canadian designed, fully automated and “touchless”, designed and built by them over a decade. And then there’s the iconic all-Canadian burger chain, A & W. It may not be the biggest but it’s likely the most loved. You may not know that A & W was born in Winnipeg in 1956, to American parents, but grew up and declared its independence in the north. The US chain came first and the Winnipeg restaurant opened as a licensed subsidiary. It was then sold to Unilever in 1972 and in 1995 a Canadian group led by then president Jeff Mooney, with 5 VPs, bought it back as a fully independent Canadian entity. A&W Canada was miles ahead of the market when it moved to beef raised without hormones or steroids back in 2013. Ironically, when they launched the values-based branding, there weren’t enough Canadian ranchers meeting the hormone free standard so beef had to come from the US and Australia. While all this is playing out at the retail level, most provincial governments came on board with the ban on American alcohol products. At the federal level, last year’s announced “Buy Canadian Policy” prioritizes Canadian suppliers in federal procurement. At least seven of our allies have complained to the WTO, including the US, which is still this country’s largest supplier to government. The complainers say Canada may not be honouring its commitment to “guarantee non-discriminatory access” to government procurement — a promise baked into the trade pacts we’ve already signed. As you all remember, because it happened only last month, Trump signed a memorandum which starts the process of identifying and removing Canadian-origin items across the entire federal procurement system and leaves the door open to further escalation. Of course. So while the US and some others believe preferential procurement in Canada goes too far, domestic analysts point to a built-in exception which lets the government off the Canadian preference hook if the overall price will be 25% higher than a foreign bid. They say it makes the “buy Canadian” rule somewhat lacking in the dental department. Well, we’ve got multiple Elbows Up anthems, South Park’s old chestnut, “Blame Canada”, but I’ve opted to go waaaay back to the Midnight Special in March of 1974. The quality starts off shaky but it’s worth hanging in there. (From Ron Wells on YouTube) Until next time, America, don’t come knockin’ ‘round my door. I don’t wanna see your face no more. Talking With Friends, Sharing the Load is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit joannapiros.substack.com/subscribe
