The Current - Buy Canadian!

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

While the trade war continues to heat up, the Made-in-Canada movement is surging. We speak with former CBC broadcaster and social media influencer, Tod Maffin, about his online Canadian marketplace, Main Street Canada. We also speak with Jacquelyn Corbett, owner of the Toronto-based children' s clothing brand, Mini Mioche, and Ashley Chapman, the COO of Chapman's icecream, about the challenges ahead, and how they are shifting away from their American customers and suppliers.

What are we doing today? We're going to save some puppies. When there's a dog in need, Brady Olivera and Alex Blumberg are hitting the ground running. Catch the new series Must Love Dogs, a heartwarming show about a dog-loving couple, and Brady's life as a running back for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and a CFL All-Star. Must Love Dogs. Stream now on CBC Gem. This is a CBC podcast.

I'm Paul Hunter, and this is the current podcast. Hello, I am Nicole Miller Glass. I make adorable glass sculptures, which are now subject to a tariff going into the United States, and I am from Salzborough, Irish Columbia. Hi, I'm Julie from Heward Farms in East Garfax, Ontario. We grow the lavender, we make the products, and yep, it's Canadian, all grown here, made here from our 8,000 lavender plants. Hello, Canada.

I'm Susan from Hot Rock's jewelry, and I designed jewelry inspired by forgotten treasures and timeless. symbols. I'm Shane Reaver and artists from Frederick. These are just some of the small Canadian businesses hit by U.S. tariffs. They are now being showcased on something called Main Street Canada. It's part of a fast-growing movement to buy Canadian as the trade war escalates. Broadcaster and social media influencer on all things Canadian. Todd Maffin is spearheading the project. He's in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Good morning. Good morning, Paul. So you started Main Street right after the trade talks collapsed, right?

I mean, tell us about the project. You know, I wanted to figure out a way to use the social media platform that I have, which is closing in on a couple of million followers, to benefit Canada. My wife and I do these projects here and there. And so we figured, you know, what better way than to just invite people to send us videos about what they do? It wasn't a particularly complicated idea. It was just sort of send us, you know, 10 seconds, 5 seconds of what you

sell and I'll throw them all together in a video. We'll get like 20 or 30 in a video and we'll just keep pumping out the videos and hopefully people will see, you know, all of the diversity of the products that are sold in this country, but also give a real lift to some of these businesses that, you know, need it at the best of times, let alone during these times. I got to say I find them funny, quirky, interesting, neat, cool, amusing, watchable, but also with a sort of a strong message. What did you? What did you? have in mind when you launched it? I think it's really important that people do what they can during times like this.

And, you know, this is what we do as a nation, right? You know, I think one of the things that we are defined as as Canadians is that even in the worst of times, we do not let our neighbors down. And I wanted to let people embody that in a way. We can't all do everything. We can't all, you know, purchase a business or donate $1,000. but hey, if you can buy a $12 belt or a $16

pair of earrings and hang on to it for Christmas, from some of these small businesses, that can mean an awful lot. I just got an email this morning from a shop owner that sold five belts. They're in Atlantic Canada. And you may think, okay, well, five's not a big number,

but to them, that is like the most number of orders they've had in a single 24-hour period. And sometimes it can make the difference between whether you cover your mortgage or whether you don't. I mean, how many businesses have reached out to you since you launched this last week? We're past 200 now, I think. So it's getting there up there, yeah.

And what have they told you about the impact that the videos have had? It's a stronger impact than I think people realize. Because not only are there the tariffs, the business owners, a lot of that administrative burden of the filing of the paperwork and stuff has shifted now to those business owners. So, you know, I think they're feeling like they have to make a decision whether or not they want to take that burden on and that. extra responsibility and potentially lose a bunch of money in the process, or lose a bunch of money by simply not shipping to the U.S. You know, I mean, we, we have such a close trade relationship with the U.S. and a lot of those small businesses and family-run businesses and, you know, hobby businesses rely on the fact that we are sitting right above a population 10 times our size. You know,

and that's how they make their business. So, you know, cutting one country off isn't just, you know, cutting the orders by half, it can be cutting it by like 80, 90%. You've been posting about Canada since early days of, I guess, what we can call the elbows up era. For those who are not one of your 2 million followers, how would you describe what you do? I don't think too deeply about it, honestly. It's sort of, you know, part of it is middle-aged guy wandering around the neighborhood yelling into his phone and uploading the resulting video.

I'm intrigued by where we are right now as a nation. There are not many points in, I think, a nation's history where you're on the balance and you can shift who you are and how you are in the sort of the global geopolitical space. And I think we're at one of those inflection points right now. You know, we have massively changed the way that we do business around the world. And that has changed, I think, the way that we are as Canadians. it certainly affected the way many of us feel about the U.S., not the people across the border. I don't think anyone has a difference in terms of our neighbors. You know, the folks that are living across the border are the same people as we are.

You know, we're just trying to put food on our table and put our kids through school and stuff like that. But I think the relationship at the political level has changed pretty dramatically. So, you know, I like to talk about that. I like to talk about where we are as a nation and what people can do to help move that forward. in a positive way. Tell us about the grocery store video. That was the first one I had that really went viral. It was right when the tariffs were first put in a year and a half ago.

And I thought I would help people understand what product of Canada, all those sorts of things in the grocery store the labels were. So I just sort of wandered around my grocery store and was yabbering about it. That video went viral, four or five million views. And a lot of the people who were in the comments were Americans saying, This is okay with us. We support you boycotting us. We support the Canadian economy. So kind of is a bit of a joke. I made a video saying, hey, listen, if you guys really support our economy, let's pick a weekend. You all can come up here to Vancouver Island and spend money in our restaurants, stay in our places, you know, shop in our stores. And Paul, a year and a half ago, about 350 of them turned up for what we ended up calling the Dynamo Infusion. And this last April, more than 700, Americans came up to support our economy. Half of the groups who traveled had health care workers with them. And there are now more than 200 health care workers that are working in Vancouver Island

because of that program. So little things like that can actually make a pretty big difference. Todd, did you ever think this would become your thing? I mean, like what has made you so passionate about this country? I mean, I think I'm just deeply fortunate to have been born here. You know, it's not a decision I made. But, Paul, do you remember the littlestobo? Of course.

So one of the things that a lot of people don't realize about the littleestobo was that there were actually seven of them. There were seven dog actors, right? And the reason that they had seven is that each one was good at doing one particular thing. There was one dog that was really, really good at looking proud. That one was called London. There was one that was really good at operating things mechanically. There was one that was good at looking angry and fierce.

Every dog could do something differently and do something well. and not every dog could do everything. And that's sort of the way I view my role with this. Like, I'm good at making videos. I'm not good at a lot of other things. So I'll make videos. Other people are really good at running small businesses, so they can do that.

Maybe some other people have extra money, and they're good at supporting those businesses. Pick your hobo. We don't all have to do everything for this country, but if you can pick something that you're good at, be that hobo for this country. I did not think this conversation was going to end up with an analogy with a little as hobo, but you make a good point, Todd, Todd, Todd

Todd, Todd, Todd Maffin, runs Main Street Canada with his wife, Jocelyn. You can find links to his videos and newsletter at far and wide.news. What are we doing today? We're going to save some puppies. When there's a dog in need, Brady Olivera and Alex Blumberg are hitting the ground running. Catch the new series, Must Love Dogs, a heartwarming show about a dog-loving couple, and Brady's life as a running back for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and a CFL All-Star. Must Love Dogs.

Stream now on CBC Gem. Mini Miash is one of the small businesses that sent in a video to Main Street, Canada. It's a small Canadian brand that sells children's clothing. It's CEO, Jacqueline Corbett, is with me here in our Toronto studio. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for coming in. So tell us about your business.

What do you sell? All right. So we make 100% GOTS certified organic apparel for kids, babies, and even adults. And we make it here in Canada. Even our fabric is milled here. What's GOTS? It's global organic trade certified. So it's the most, it's the global standard on organic fabrics, the most sustainable fabric you can get.

But the other label everybody's looking for right now is the other label. one made in Canada, right? That's correct. We've been made in Canada since 2008. So we've been doing this for a long time. And it's, it's, we're a mission driven business. This is core to who we are. So this is a peculiar time right now, isn't it? It's a very exciting time. Exciting. Well, but it began, you took a hit though, right? Income the tariffs. What, what impact did that have on you? Last year when the trade war first hit, we immediately saw our U.S. business tank. U.S. is about half of our business as a Canadian brand. And so that was huge for us. And concurrently, we saw the Canadian business start to rise up. And it took a little time for that to build out.

By the time the fall hit, the U.S. business was severely impaired. And that was really difficult. our warehouse partner had a really difficult time figuring out how to ship into the U.S. with all of the regulations that were happening. So it took us about seven months from that time to get the U.S. business building up again. Once March hit, we started being able to run ads for the first time in basically a year. And then last week, the new 50% tariffs hit. And the business just tanked in the U.S. yet again. And so a year of real struggle followed by this big hit.

It was significant for us. So how did you make up for the losses? How did you turn things around? It's a great question. Actually, the reason we launched our adult collection last year in the fall is because we're like, the U.S. hit is huge for us. What are we going to do? So in apparel, you're buying your fabric months in advance and you're buying your

purchase orders for your product months in advance as well. So we had already purchased everything for a back half of the year when the trade war hit. And, you know, we kind of said, what are we going to do with all this fabric? And we said, okay, well, let's try launching adult. And the interesting thing for us, I thought that would pick up with our existing customers, because people will say, oh, I wish I had this sweatshirt in my size. It's so soft. It's so beautiful. Blah, blah, blah. And so we got pickup that way. But we actually ended up getting, you know, a lot of SEO pickup on the other side from new customers. So we started engaging new customers, which was really interesting.

It gave us a reason to build out the business. The other thing we did at that time was start to think about the strategy differently because we had been really digital focused. Building out the U.S. was a huge strategic area for us. And so at that time, I was like, I think we need to go to retail. We need to open a store. And we opened in Toronto, you know, just recently. And so that was, again, part of the shift of like,

we have to start thinking about our customers who are here and having presence in Canada more than we do. And then along comes Main Street, Canada. That was amazing. It's so funny because my accountant actually slacked me that morning and said, hey, you need to submit a video to Todd Maffin. Look what he's doing. And I was like, this is amazing. And, you know, we put it up. And he featured us very quickly.

I was so excited. It was amazing. And what he's doing is huge. Like sometimes people forget for a small business, you know, when I say half of our business tanked overnight, a small business, half of your business tanking overnight is huge for me, but it's not huge for 37 million Canadians, you know. I need 10 people to make a different choice every day. And that is make or break for my business, you know, that's huge. 10 people is not an insurmountable challenge for a country of this size where people care this much, especially with this much passion and momentum behind it. So, yeah, the people doing things like that, I think it's hard for people to understand how big that impact is for a business owner, keeping their business afloat.

What a time in this country. It's amazing. It's so exciting for me to see because we've been making in Canada for so long. And seeing people care about it to this extent, we make these decisions because it's critical for our economy, for our sustainability as well. It's a big, big deal. What a pleasure chatting with you, Jacqueline. So nice. Thank you so much for having me. Good luck.

Thank you. Jacqueline Corbett is the CEO of Mini Mioch. Ashley Chapman is the chief operating officer at Chapman's, the Canadian-owned ice cream brand. We've reached him at his factory in Markdale, Ontario. Good morning, Ashley. Good morning. Going to be fully transparent here.

You and I've spoken before, but we're in this time. So here we go again. Look, when the trade talks. collapsed. You made a decision that got a lot of attention, one of the reasons that we've spoken before. And that was about shifting away from U.S. suppliers. Tell us what you did. Well, when the first round of American tariffs were put on about a year and a half ago, we made the strategic decision to start booking elsewhere. And we've been remarkably successful in our hunt for non-USA suppliers. So give us some examples of what you

stopped buying from the U.S. While some of our ice cream sandwich wafers are now produced in Canada, we're actually going to be receiving almonds from Australia of all places by mid next year. We've got cherries from Chile that are going to start flowing in in the first quarter of next year. So yeah, we've touched just about everything. And the most exciting thing, though, is we've managed to reshore some manufacturing here, and we're going to be sourcing 100% of our cones for our ice cream from a company just outside of Hamilton. So, I mean, give us the sense of how big a deal this has been for your company.

I mean, how reliant had you been on U.S. suppliers up until now? Very, very reliant. And to be honest, the relationships were amazing. 10, 20, 30 years we've been dealing with some of these American suppliers. And I guarantee you they are not happy with the current state, of the American government. Has it been tough to find replacements? I mean, one of the things that, you know, as part of the conversation with Canada, U.S. trade and all the changes and complications,

has been that it has been pretty convenient having that place, that market, those suppliers, just on the other, effectively, on the other side of the road, but, you know, on the other side of the border. How challenging has it been to find Canadian replacements? Actually, it hasn't been as hard as we would have thought. Certainly the political environment south of the border has motivated Canadian businesses to kind of think about, you know what? We never consider doing this before, but why not? We need to take care of our business in our backyard before we start worrying about what our business is going to be like in the United States. And a lot of Canadian businesses are reaching out to us. We're reaching out to them and we're collaborating more than ever before.

One of the things a lot of people talk about as well, and again, because the U.S. market is what it is, a giant place, big market, that prices can be lower in the U.S. You've pledged no price increases. How do you prevent passing on your sort of, I guess, new costs to consumers? Well, this journey has been insane. Like, the fact that I can get almonds, high quality, amazing almonds from Australia for slightly less than what I can get them in. the United States. It makes me wonder about these relationships I've had with these American suppliers over the years. And maybe I was not getting the best of deals all these years. Who knew? From Australia, too, man. Why are you doing this? Like, what, this could cost you money, you know, despite the, the price of almonds in Australia. But why are you doing this? We are doing this because I really firmly believe that we are in a major transition as a country. I think we are going to remember these times in 20 years from now as a turning

point and Canada becoming more reliant on itself, more reliant on its people. And I think, you know, we need to shake off the doom and gloom that we hear in the media about this trade war and think, you know what, this might be the best thing to happen to Canada for a very long time. How ironic is that, hey? Canadians in the face of adversity. We've got a few seconds left. How would you, what do you think this says about this country? We are a remarkable country.

We are remarkable people. And we can literally do anything if we stick together. All of the provinces, all of the politicians. If we all just support each other, we are going to get through this turmoil just fine. Ashley, it was a pleasure chatting with you. you again. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks, Paul. Ashley Chapman is the chief operating officer at Chapman's. He was in Markdale, Ontario. You've been listening to the current podcast. I'm Paul Hunter. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca.com.