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.
You KNOW that the Westons are dumping tons of money into astroturfing this “Canada First” bullshit.
Oh, they are. On my only remaining corporate social media feed (Facebook, because that’s where my mom sees my stuff), I’m constantly getting bombarded with Superstore ads, where some manager is talking about a great Canadian brand they carry.
Fuckers.
They fuck us harder than the Americans, and now we’re lining up for the privilege.
Bots that three months ago were raging against Trudeau like he personally shat on their keyboards are today extolling saccharine praises for everything Canadian. Because perversely that is currently a better angle for creating conflict and disharmony among Western democracies. And boy are we there for it. Everybody loves us again, it’s like the 90s all over. Except Canada is still the same colonialist country, nothing but a bank, a communication company and an oil company stacked in a trenchcoat. Don’t believe the bullshit.