Front Burner - Buy Canadian, bye-bye America?

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Even with the tariffs on U.S. goods mostly on pause for the rest of the month, many are still doing what they can to “Buy Canadian” and switch their buying habits away from anything American-made. But how do you actually go about doing that? And should it extend into our digital and media habits too?Vass Bednar, executive director of McMaster University's Master of Public Policy and Digital Society program and author of The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians, joins us to wade through the murky waters of navigating a trade war in a country that’s so intertwined with its neighbour to the south.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In Scarborough, there's this fire behind our eyes. A passion in our bellies. It's in the hearts of our neighbors. The eyes of our nurses. And the hands of our doctors. It's what makes Scarborough, Scarborough. In our hospitals, we do more than anyone thought possible. We've less than anyone could imagine.

But it's time to imagine what we can do with more. Join Scarborough Health Network and together, we can turn grit into greatness. Donate at lovescarborough.ca. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey, I'm Jamie Poisson. Okay, you're angry that Trump and his cronies are talking about annexing this country. But how angry are you? Are you angry enough to check the country of origin when buying oranges and pick the

one not from Florida? What if it's more expensive? Or would you stop your Amazon order and instead wait a week for your package to come via Canada Post? Are you angry enough to ditch HBO right before the next season of White Lotus comes out? What about cutting off Apple TV Plus right before the Severance finale? Or blocking out Kendrick Super Bowl performance? Are you having second thoughts? Today on the show, Vass Bednar is with me. She's the executive director of McMaster University's Master of Public Policy and Digital Society program and author of The Big Fix, How Companies

Capture Markets and Harm Canadians. And we're going to talk about this whole bi-Canadian movement and surge of Canadian patriotism. Vass, hey, it's great to have you on. Thank you for having me. Okay, people are very into this bi-Canadian moment. There are Reddit threads, there are Facebook groups, new apps, all dedicated to helping people find alternatives to American products and services. I saw a poll from Abacus Data that found 84% of people said that they were going to try

to buy more Canadian products now. What do you make of this rare show of Canadian patriotism at this moment, especially in relation to the way that people shop? Hmm. I mean, a range for me. On the one hand, I'm sort of, I feel caught up in sort of the froth and I'm clicking just like everyone else,

like, yeah, okay, what else can I learn? What switches can I make? What substitutions? And then when I zoom out and think about, wait a minute, is this, this isn't what makes us Canadian, right? This idea that we are what we buy. But I love purchase as kind of an initial provocation and this recalibration of our consumption habits as a

way to rethink like, sure, who are we? But what do we value? Like, what kind of markets do we want to have? Do we want to participate in? Do we want to support? And that doesn't have to be exclusive to Canada, but I get it. We're trying to switch away from the US. Before we dig into some of those loftier, deeper questions, just tell me like, what are you doing right now? Have you made any switches? What are they? You know what? I've been doing like terrible things, like trying to search on Etsy for Canadian sellers and like favorite items and just sort of covet things. I find I'm holding my dollars closer to my chest

and I'm just sort of in a frozen kind of stasis. Sorry, you're not my therapist, but like there's a lot of feelings around consumption of any kind right now. No, no, this is great. I was hoping that this would be a bit of a cathartic. Okay, I'm feeling kind of better, yeah. It's kind of something that we're all feeling right now. No, no, this is great. I was hoping that this would be a bit of a cathartic conversation. I'm feeling kind of better. Yeah. It's kind of something that we're all feeling right now. When it comes to trying to buy Canadian stuff, I did want to talk to you a bit about

that. When we say buy Canadian, what exactly does that look like in practice? How would you define that? I mean, I would have a different definition than sort of these labels around food products, right? Because I think that's where a lot of us are anchored and kind of first and foremost, our minds are brick and mortar and like, what do we have to purchase, right? Food. So, you know, at minimum. And there's sort of that, you know, discussion around a label of being Canadian or product of Canada is more interchangeable and mean the same thing. But for something to be made in Canada means that the last substantial transformation of the product occurred here in the country. If 98% or more of the item is Canadian content, it can be called a product of Canada. To be made in Canada, it only needs to have 51% of Canadian content.

Again, that's just one element. When I think about supporting a Canadian firm, I also wonder about the ownership of that company, right? We're seeing the financialization of the economy, more private equity. And I also think Canadians are paying even more attention to the values of those firms. We've seen this, you know, right around the time of tariffs, frankly, in the inauguration,

this very aggressive rejection of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from certain companies. And Costco is one company that sort of dug in their heels there. So people might want to also use their dollars to support a company that again, from a values perspective, is more aligned with what maybe we see as being Canadian, as sort of being in the right place. And I think that's just the bigger element of paying for things. I don't know that it follows that you can save the economy and save money at the same time. And I also think that's kind of what we're trying to do. So maybe I'll just sort of put it back to you that we also pay for things with our time and our attention. And there are other things we can do outside of sort of our wallets

that are also powerful and maybe just as painful, frankly. Nicole Zalpil We'll just elaborate on that, what you mean by that. Nicole Zalpil So you're at the CBC and your company made a decision quite some time ago to no longer be posting on Twitter, which I think I'm supposed to call X, but I have trouble doing that. And that was a values-based decision and there's a cost associated with that, maybe marginal, but you lost a presence on a major social media platform. I'm still on that platform. I am tacitly

supporting one of the most destructive people right now in the world, right? Elon Musk, why? With my attention and my time and my incredible content. And I'm ashamed about that, right? When you ask, what are you doing? What are you thinking about? I'm asking myself, what am I doing there? And why haven't I deleted my account yet? Right back to values and what I'm supporting. This is part of the fight. Well, why haven't you deleted your account? And I'll say, I posted on X this morning. I think we're torn because it used to be something else and it's part of our consumption habits, right? It's part of how we participate in a more digital economy, how we learn a

little bit, how we share things. So, you know, we didn't sign up because of the values of the person who owned the company. In fact, the ownership has shifted quite a bit since then. But I mean, if we just kind of take this down the line, right, this boycott of American products, an orange is an orange, right? If you try to buy an orange from somewhere other than Florida, you still get an orange, right? But a lot of these companies, especially these big tech companies, they loom so, so large

over our lives, right? So I'm just trying to envision a scenario in which Canadians are willing to like cut their Netflix subscription or stop using Amazon or, you know, as I said in the intro, like just skip out on the rest of the season of Severance. Maybe after Severance. Maybe after the finale. No, look, I mean, Amazon's a great example.

They announced much like Shopify did, I think Amazon beat them to it, this made in Canada storefront, right? So that as a platform, they can kind of harness that and help connect us to Canadian products. Now, Amazon's also a company, whether or not we're in a tariff war, that punishes companies, punishes merchants if they offer a lower price elsewhere. We know that the Bezos-owned Washington Post killed a political endorsement. Again, back to these values, it's also wrapped up together. So do I see people ending their Netflix subscription? I mean, one, prices are going up, subscription traps, people are more price conscious than ever

before. There are more ways now on these cultural platforms for us to retake some of that control and listen to more or watch more Canadian content, right? So I'd love to see or, you know, see us switch as often as we can to more of that, again, support for Canadian culture where and when we can, I think, calibrating our attention and our time is part of this fight and part of finding appropriate methods of resistance that don't have to be going out and buying something. And I loved the example you gave of, are we willing to wait longer for items to get to our front door? Because I think we're not having the conversation around convenience. And convenience is what freaking got us here in the first place, right? Globalization, bring the prices down, cheaper labor, cheaper manufacturing, etc., etc., etc. We've been through these waves of consumer-led waves of consumer-led values-based purchasing, whether it's dolphin-safe tuna or anti-sweatshop or cage-free and free-range eggs or like Rainforest Alliance. I think that was hotter in the 90s.

But it all comes back to getting really used to being able to get cheap things quickly and part of ensuring we don't punish Canadian firms now if we're shopping elsewhere or on Etsy, etc. is not punishing people for not getting here the next day, which also comes back to reviews, the power of reviews in a digital economy. Ways you can support local independent businesses that you love, like it or not, we're still, online reviews are still very powerful. Give five stars while you're on the couch, while you're watching something on TV. In Scarborough, there's a fire behind our eyes. A passion in our bellies. It's in the hearts of our neighbors.

The eyes of our nurses. And the hands of our doctors. It's what makes Scarborough, Scarborough. In our hospitals, we do more than anyone thought possible. With less than anyone could imagine. But it's time to imagine what we can do with more. Join Scarborough Health Network and together, we can turn grit into greatness.

Donate at lovescarborough.ca. Overwhelmed by debt? You are not alone. Empower yourself with trusted solutions. Visit canada.ca slash debt dash solutions and regain control with confidence. A message from the government of Canada. This idea you were talking about before about choosing to consume Canadian content,

like even on Netflix or something. Do you think people will do that, you know, in the face of this cultural behemoth in the United States? Right? Well, I think just like that way we can split hairs over what portion of a product or packaging has to be made here in Canada, we constantly have that cultural conversation. Right? Is it that a director is Canadian, an actor, an actress? was it filmed here? Does that musician still live in Canada, etc. etc. I think you can leave that up to people, but again, the platforms have that curatorial function and they need to be able to allow us to search and share appropriately. Maybe make a playlist of

your favorite what you think to be Canadian songs and help people kind of find anthems in these times. But these are ways we can help each other and make referrals. I'm not suggesting anyone sort of punish themselves or go through like the pain of watching something that they didn't want to or remove themselves from cultural conversations where you find, you know, connections and water cooler conversations and feel in the know. I just think we need to remember that platforms are part of this economic war. Also, Made in Canada is from Perner. I'm not telling people not to listen to The Daily, but you know, what if you did that? What if you switched away? Hey, small things. I mean, of course you're laughing and it is funny,

but it's like, sure, that's a small thing. That's a micro kind of act of resistance and it is painful. It changes your habits, right? It changes what you're maybe used to, even though it doesn't cost you money, it costs you your time and your attention, which is frankly, just

as valuable. You and I kind of jumped right into all of this cultural stuff, which is really where my head has been. But I just want to come back up to what we were talking about at the beginning, just to kind of put some more clarity around it. Like if I am a person just trying to navigate this all right now and trying to make decisions around buying Canadian. Just like give me some more information about how I might do that,

how I might figure out if a company was Canadian owned or not. You know, it's all about homework. Again, many people trust others. You mentioned Reddit, especially to sort of curate and refer. Doing some research on either the company itself or the product, right? Because a company doesn't necessarily own all the products that they have on their shelves. Sometimes Wikipedia is your friend here, one of the final kind of holdouts of the digital

economy becoming very contentious now because it's seen as a source of actual truth in an age of misinformation. That's a way to understand the context if the firm is public or private, maybe what investors it has, if you want to, if you're willing to kind of go that deep. Maybe that's something you save for more major purchases that aren't part of your day to day. Again, I get the focus on food, candy, alcohol that we're seeing appliances in this immediate, but in terms of the bigger landscape of substitutions, but also our habits and awareness. Canadians have been learning

a lot about supply chains since the shock of the pandemic and about the costs of things and about the fees and tolls that a supplier might pay to even get on a grocery store shelf. We've had that conversation with our grocery code of conduct. So I see this as maybe this moment as a culmination of a lot of learning and thinking about our country and also recognizing the constraints of the country, right? We talk about Canada's consolidation and that's going to play out in some of our purchasing too. We're going to feel like there isn't enough choice or that the choices we have are maybe pricier or maybe not as of high quality that we're used to. Or maybe we're paying more because they're not a global company that's manufacturing in excessive bulk, etc. But it's all coming back,

I suppose, to those values and to that opportunity. And again, I think our values are about more than just saving money, right? It's like when we're trying to find ourselves now or think about what this moment means, I think it's that we're willing to take more time, do more work, and maybe even pay a little bit more to support companies that are here, not just because they're here, but aren't part of this antagonism. Last time we had you on the show was actually to talk about law bluffs, right? And how angry people were at law bluffs for what they felt was price gouging. But I see so many of these lists circulating online right now, these bi-Canadian lists, at the top of the list is like

President's Choice and no name. And, and, you know, people are going to have to kind of make decisions around that stuff too. Like they might actually have to change, sort of shift their values from something that they might have been doing a couple months ago in protest over something else, right? that they might have been doing a couple months ago in protest over something else, right? Yeah, they may have to. I mean, this is about looking in words and working with what we have, right?

Making the most of what we have. And if that's a great way for people to maintain their dietary choices, and again, still have a lower price, that's fantastic. I'd be sort of waning and wondering if the grocery stores are going to do much more than sort of the, I don't want to be dismissive of stickers, but like labeling for people, which is very helpful. Can grocery stores do more to make it

even more affordable or cheaper for Canadian suppliers to get on their shelves who sort of really fight for that, who are up against huge American companies with massive brand name recognition. That could be something that could be powerful. So we're really framing this conversation, again, putting the burden on everyday people, framing, reframing citizens as consumers. Maybe our companies, again, our companies, companies in Canada, Canadian companies, can be doing more to support Canadian products. We've been talking about buying, but the other thing that people are already doing is canceling their plans to travel to the U.S. At the Canada-U.S. border, officials are reporting a huge drop in southbound traffic at some

ports of entry. In Blaine, Washington, near Vancouver, wait times were just five minutes, down from the usual 19 minutes on a Sunday, let alone Super Bowl Sunday. According to StatsCan, 20 million Canadians visit the US each year. They spend around 19 billion in tourist dollars. I'm thinking right now of all the snowbirds that go to Florida every year. We are their biggest source of tourism. And what kind of impact do you think that that could have?

I think it could have a super significant impact. I think again, anytime you're looking at where and when you're investing your dollars, cancelling trips. I know I've seen some people back to that tension like, oh, I've already booked or what am I going to lose? Those dollar decisions in the future, not just for Canadians, can we support our country kind of recirculate, but can we invite more people here who want to show their support for Canada and how we're getting stomped on in an international stage? That'd be great for us. And to sort of come back to that really lofty question

of who are we? Given everything that we've talked about today, what does this say to you about this particular brand of Canadian patriotism that is being expressed right now? You know, I think the fastest reaction I saw on the threat of tariffs was that this hour has 22 minutes sketch about patriotism at the grocery store. Cheetos? No. Hawkins? I like my Cheezys soft. Morris, no. Time for soft Cheezys. Not my Charmin. Look, I need that. I'm sensitive. This is like wiping your arse with the Charter of Rights. Try Royale. If it sounds English

or French, it's probably Canadian. And the fact that it was comedians helping us have a laugh and sort of reflect our own nervousness about will we make the right decision when we go out to feed our family and that that happened ahead of Amazon announcing how they'd support Canadian merchants and certainly ahead of how Shopify was going to help us find Canadian merchants says that we are fundamentally able to get together by having a laugh at the absurdity of this and help each other out, help each other make good decisions, better decisions for the country, and the best decisions for us. Thank you so much for this. It was awesome. Thank you. Thanks for letting me go

in a thousand different directions. It was great to have you. All right, that's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.