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.
A big one is getting people to stop shopping at Loblaw-owned businesses. There is a daily barrage of complaints, rants, and vents about how awful Loblaw is and yet people keep shopping there. I worked for them for 4 years - and I experienced firsthand how many customers expressed disgust at the company and yet returned literally the next day. And the day after. And the week after. And the month after. I live in an area with a LARGE amount of alternative grocery stores and yet they kept returning.
I understand that not everybody lives with alternative grocery stores nearby, but there are still other options. Local butchers, dairy producers, bakeries, produce markets, etc. Many of which will even do delivery or advanced ordering for quick pickup. And they might even be cheaper and certainly better quality!
The parasitic scum that are sucking us dry are not just American. They are Canadian too and people need to start taking that seriously.
I sincerely wish I could drop loblaws entirely.
The problem is, between them and sobey's (who are proving to be just as evil, recently doing things like covering 'made in us' labels, union busting after they bought Safeway, etc) there aren't any other places to shop.
In my town, there is 1 loblaws store, 2 gas station corner stores and 2 independent corner stores - guess which is the only one that carries meat and produce?
In the next town over, there are 2 loblaws, 1 sobeys, 4 gas station corner stores, and 4 specialty shops - again, guess where I have to go for produce, or a wider selection of meat cuts/types?
If I want to buy from stores that aren't loblaws or sobeys, I have to drive 4 hours to my closest Costco (which i do every 4 months, because Costco is so much cheaper than local it pays for my gas easily), and even then the only other not loblaws/sobeys option in that town is fucking walmart.
What Canada needs isn't a better loblaws boycott, it needs a government willing to put in place and enforce checks and balances on the duopolies Canada has in every sector - and stop letting foreign investors own all of our assets and funnel the profits out of country while we're at.
Just an FYI here, it was Sobey's/Empire that bought Safeway, not Loblaws.
Yes, that was included in the same sentence you quoted.
Honestly I buy local as much as I can but when I do my 'big' shops I'm still going to Costco. I don't care that they're American, I'm still putting my faith in them over Loblaws.
All my fresh produce is from local stores and I only buy used otherwise. I'm doing my best but I fucking hate Loblaws.
Perfect example of what I'm talking about. Sometimes the best solution involves buying from an American company. Hopefully not often, but reality is complicated.