The Current - How sustainable is the Buy Canadian movement?

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Buying Canadian has been top of mind this year — but some people are warning that it might not survive the holiday season. With the cost of living crisis and holiday expenses, some research suggests people do want to buy Canadian — but don't always follow through with their wallet. We speak with a couple local business owners about how impactful the Buy Canada movement has been on their companies, and with an expert to unpack what the gap is between what Canadians want to buy, and what they actually do buy.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. You know, if you're a Canadian business trying to sell hot tubs in the middle of a trade war, you could do worse than turning to a song, as this Ontario company did. By Canadian has been the message from many businesses, both big and small in Canada this year. Some of them turned to song, as you heard.

Locally made products, though, aren't always the most affordable, and there is worry the buy Canadian movement has stalled in the face of a cost of living crisis. People out shopping during the Black Friday sales in Toronto and Ottawa were mixed in their thoughts on still buying Canadian. It's better to buy Canadian as we're trying to do, and just to keep supporting. I wouldn't say it's absolutely priority,

but if I had the choice, I would pick Canadian first. Especially when I go shopping now, I search for Canadian. Ideally, if you can get Canadian, I'd get Canadian. Just you've got to keep the budget in mind. I think that whole Buy Canadian is becoming a little bit less and less as time goes on a little bit. We've got to get back to our old spending patterns. Statistics Canada found that nearly 70% of businesses did not see an increase in sales of their Canadian products over the past six months. For some businesses that did see a Buy Canadian boost, it was not enough to offset other losses.

Cal Green is the founder and owner of the Ottawa-based streetware company raised by Wolves. Every day there's a new challenge, like a postal strike, a trade war. There's always going to be something as a small business owner, and I think it's been tough. It's been a really tough couple years ever since COVID, and sales are down this year over last, for me personally. But there has been an increase in Canadian sales. I'm hoping that the bi-Canadian movement isn't just a trend. It's something that lasts for a long time. That's a question as to whether it will, though.

How durable is the bi-Canadian movement? And what is it meant for Canadian businesses? We have two business owners with us this morning to talk about how they have weathered the past year. Julie Brown is a co-founder of the Toronto-based clothing brand, province of Canada. She is in Toronto. And Josephine Aou is the co-owner of Emery. It's a matcha brand. She's in Vancouver this morning.

Good morning to you both. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having us. Thanks for being here. Julie, tell me about your business. What does province of Canada sell? Yeah, so we have been making all of our products in Canada for the last 11 years. We make clothing, everything from socks to dress shirts to baseball caps, tukes, that sort of thing. And making your things here is a point of pride, right?

It sure is, yeah. It's something we set out to do, like I said, 11 years ago, and we haven't looked back. So, yeah, we've been consistent, and I think that the last year has really, I mean, for us, it's been amazing because I feel like we've kind of, there's been a spotlight on what we have been working towards all these years. So, yeah. When you have a business that is called province of Canada, one might assume that the last year would be good if people are buying Canadian. What does that meant for your business? Yeah, I mean, it's been a wild year. I can't deny that.

When we've definitely, you know, we've seen an increase in sales of almost double. So, you know, we've had to double our staff. We've had a busy year, for sure. It's been amazing, and we've received so much positive feedback from Canadians. I know that, you know, we did see a little bit of a dip in, September, early October, but now that we just, you know, our Black Friday cyber sale was last week. And now that the holiday season has really kicked off, we were back to seeing those big numbers. You've doubled the size of your staff? Yes. That's amazing. I mean, given everything

that people have gone through. Why do you think, I mean, again, maybe it's the name, maybe it's what you're selling, maybe it's something larger. Why do you think that sales have almost doubled? I mean, for us, it just felt like we did receive a lot of, you know, press much like this, which is wonderful. Thank you. You know, it has felt like what we've been doing and working towards all these years has just been highlighted. And I think a lot of new Canadians that didn't even know about us before this year. So I think that has a lot to do with it. We also, you know, we speak to Canadians directly in our marketing.

And I think it really resonates with Canadians. And I think they trust us and they rely on us. And we've met the moment for them. And so, yeah, we keep showing up. It's got to feel good. It does. Josephine, what about for you? You're selling matcha very popular these days.

What have the tariffs and the trade war and everything that all that surrounds that. What does that mean for your business? Yeah, it had a huge impact. So when the tariffs first came about and the de minimis rule, had ended. The U.S. actually made up around 50% of our orders, which is a pretty big chunk. So around like August 29th, when the de minimis rule ended, we actually completely paused our shipments to the U.S. just because there was such a huge lack of information in terms of how duties were collected and remitted, if there were shipping delays, what type of regulatory and compliance

was needed to be had, and so just from a consumer perspective, as consumers ourselves, we didn't feel comfortable sort of taking in orders when we didn't have all of the answers in place. Very luckily, around, and this was, you know, 2.5 months afterwards, there was a U.S. executive order on November 13th where a number of products are now exempted from tariffs. And green tea is part of that list. So very gratefully, November 18th was when we actually were able to stop collecting tariffs from our U.S. customers, which we had opened back on November 6th. But over this period, there were sort of huge impacts from us, especially from a sales perspective. We're really grateful for our Canadian community and specifically our Vancouver

community for sort of getting us through this very tough period. And now Canadian orders are sort of making up closer to 55 or 60 percent of our sort of orders now versus the 50-50 split with the U.S. I mean, de minimis, we should just explain it. This was this exemption that allowed what, shipments under $800 American to enter the United States. And there wouldn't be a duty on it. And then the Trump administration kind of pulled that back. And there was great concern as to what that was going to mean. How much of a hit was that going to cause to your business, Josephine? Yeah, it was huge because U.S. orders made up 50% of that. 50%. Yes, yeah, 50%. And pretty much all of our orders are under $800. So it really was, yeah,

a 50% cut right away because we had also paused our shipments over to the U.S. because of this. So you talked about the support that you got from Canadians, particularly in Vancouver, but elsewhere. I mean, what were you doing to try to get people to support your business, given that? Yeah, yeah. I think as a Canadian business, we tried to, of course, showcase sort of how proudly Canadian we are. However, we also, and hard to do a couple of these two, we created a concept called Emery Machabar in Vancouver. It was sort of a semi-permanent pop-up experience, only hosted on the weekends. But there we were able to create a very sort of deep-rooted community within Vancouver. We are honestly very, very grateful to have had them sort of weather this

storm with us. And so through that, we were able to sort of keep afloat truthfully. And yeah, with the by-Canadian sort of like movement as consumers ourselves and business owners, we wanted to make a decision that, of course, our green tea is from Japan that cannot be changed, but all of those supplementary aspects of running Emery Macha Bar from, you know, the oat milks that we use to the straws that we use are either from Canadian companies, local companies, or made in Canada, even though there are cheaper options elsewhere, I think with our dollars, both personally and business-wise, we choose to support Canadian. in businesses. Julie, did the de minimis change when it came to what was not allowed into the

United States duty-free? Did that have an impact on your business as well? It did not nearly as much as what you've experienced, so I'm sorry to hear that. You know, we have maybe a 5% of our businesses in the U.S. And so we weren't impacted as much, but we also stopped shipping to the U.S. at that time because, yeah, it was just too complicated. We couldn't guarantee that orders wouldn't be held up at Customs. So yeah, we did the exact same thing. That's a big decision to make, given the size of that market. I mean, 5% may not be a huge thing, but the United States has potentially an enormous market, right? Absolutely. And it's just, you know, the paperwork involved. And because we're technically, we qualify for QSMA. And we, that is our country of

origin. And so we would have to fill out that paperwork, which is quite cumbersome just for, you not for an order under $800. So, yeah, we had to choose to stop because it just felt like a customer service nightmare. Do you think this is going to last the Buy Canadian push? I mean, again, six months, eight months ago, everybody was excited. You go to the grocery store, you go to the clothing store. People are looking at the labels. They're trying to figure out where the thing came from.

Maybe it's flagged a little bit. Do you think this is going to last, Julie? Well, I mean, obviously, I hope so. And for us, like I said, we've been doing this for 11 years. So it wasn't, you know, it's not a new thing for us. And we've had a customer base that we've been building all this time. And so it's just like this year has been magnified. But I do think we will retain a lot of customers from this.

And I can't, I can imagine, I don't know about you, but when I go and I do my grocery shopping or whatever it may be, I can't help but think about the main account. It's always there. the back of your mind. It's like this little reminder that, of course, if you can, you're going to, if there's an option. And I think that that's what we've given Canadians, an option that they didn't have before potentially, or that they didn't know about. We're out of time, but let me ask you both very quickly. And I'll start with you, Julie. What would your message be? This is the time of the year when people are thinking about maybe spending a little bit more if they can during the holiday season. What would you think, what would you say to them about why it matters where

their money goes? Julie? I would say the ripple effect. You know, like I said, We've doubled our staff this year. We have kept our knitters, like we knit a lot of our fabric in Canada. We've kept our knitters, our dyers, our cut and sewers, busy. They've grown their businesses as well. You know, even here's a great example. Our mailers, we used to make them in the U.S., which were tariffed, obviously, this year. We have now found a company in Canada that is making them here.

We've just placed an order for 20,000 mailers. You know, there is a huge ripple effect when you choose to that Canadian that you're not seeing. But it allows that we're then choosing, obviously, as a Canadian company, to also spend our dollars in Canada. So you're not just impacting us. You're impacting, you know, five to six other businesses at the same time. Josephine, very briefly, what's your message to Canadians about where to spend their money? Yeah, I think really just vote with your dollars. Try to support Canadian companies and brands as much as possible, especially your local,

brands. And if you don't necessarily have the ability to spend more during this holiday season, please find other ways to support your local Canadian brands or companies, things like interacting with them on social, following them. All of that doesn't take any additional money, but it does make a world of a difference. Good advice. I wish you both the best of luck. Thanks for talking to us. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Julie Brown is the co-founder of the Toronto-based clothing brand province of Canada. Josephine Aou is the co-owner of Emery. It's a macha brand based in Vancouver. This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often.

You've got to be an underdog that always over delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new and you can help us keep climbing. Donate at Lovescarborough.ca.com. At Desjardin Insurance, we put the care in taking care of business. Your business to be exact. Our agents take the time to understand your company so you get the right coverage at the right price. Whether you rent out your building, represent a condo corporation, or own a cleaning company, we make insurance easy to understand so you can focus on the big stuff. Like your small business. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Dejardin.com slash business coverage.

Males-Panetta is a lecturer of marketing at the Wolford Laurieres-Lazeritas School of Business. She's been following the bi-Canadian movement over the past year. Malise, good morning to you. Good morning. So as we said, a lot of excitement and enthusiasm around this in the wake of the immediate tariff announcements. How strong is the bi-Canadian movement now, do you think? Yeah, it's a good question. A lot of people are asking about it. And I'm really glad to hear some of the positive news from your two previous guests. That's good to hear. I think, you know, we saw a real big spike at the beginning of the movement, and that's completely understandable. And we've seen a little bit of a taper off. But one thing I wanted to say is this movement seems to have a little bit of longevity to it. And what I mean by that is when we look at the actual data, and I'm talking right now about growth. for example, because that's the data I have in front of me. But the made in Canada products are

up 10% from basically January until end of September. That's quite a significant number. And correspondingly, the U.S. made goods are down 9%. So that's a fairly long amount of time. That's over six months. And usually when we talk about a trend versus a fad, when the length of time that they're doing it exceeds six months, it starts to move away from fad territory. into trend territory, meaning it's starting to get a little bit of root to it. People are doing that behavior as part of their daily activities a little bit more than they would have year ago. It's interesting because we just heard, and what you're saying is fascinating, what we just

heard from a couple of business owners is that they've seen a little bit of a boost. Statscan says that just about 13% of businesses said they'd seen an increase in sales of their Canadian products over the past six months. You might think that it would be more than that, given all of the attention that, we paid to it. What's going on there? Well, I think the reality is Canadians are struggling when it comes to making a decision about what they want to do versus what they can do. That's normally discussed, at least in marketing terms, that's the attitude behavior gap, right? Their attitude is they want to support Canadian. Almost 85% of Canadians tell you that they want to support Canadian.

And that's been consistently high from the beginning of 2025. And so that hasn't wavered at all. which is great. But the reality is they're facing mounting pressures as it relates to their financial situation. Cost of living increase. I mean, we've been talking about this for quite some time. It didn't start a month ago, right? So it's just been compounding on people's wall. It's housing, geopolitical tensions, tariffs, all of that stuff. So those are all things that people are concerned about. And on top of that, they now have mounting concerns about AI in the workplace and what that will mean for their job security. So when you package all of that up, consumers look at that versus buy Canadian. And sometimes it makes it difficult

for them to buy Canadian. They choose to go in a different direction in order to accommodate their financial situation. Do we know how much more we're willing to pay for Canadian made goods? Yeah, that's a great question. I've seen a few different stats. I mean, we've been previously saying it's been around 10% more. But recently, we're seeing the number might be inching up. So more recently, we're seeing this quote unquote patriotism. premium, that that's the amount people are willing to pay more. They say there's value up to about 20%. So that's a big number and double the original 10% we were saying, but that says to me that the number's pushing up above 10. Is there a generational breakdown in that in terms

of who's willing to pay more? So really interesting, I've been looking at this data for some time, and this is really interesting to say that that's across all demographics, which is relatively rare when you're looking at data. What that says to me is that this topic is equally sticky among all generations. They all see it. They all understand it. And they're all willing to support their country. When people are out shopping now, we heard from some of them earlier in Toronto and Ottawa. Retail Council of Canada does this yearly survey asking Canadians about plans for holiday spending. Santa Logote is the vice president of membership and marketing at the Retail Council of Canada. Have a listen to what their survey found. 86% first said to us they plan to shop close to

home. And then 84% said they're going to look for Canadian made goods. So then when we asked them about price, they said price remains the number one decision factor ahead of brand loyalty, location, or where it's made. And so as we get into a gift giving period and the dollars need to be, you know, stretched, you know, they're going to forego that to a certain degree to make sure that they're getting the best value for the dollar, which might be not buying a made in Canada good. You know, it's interesting. We've just come through Black Friday and all of the sales around there. You walk through the neighborhoods where I live and where I happen to be,

and you see a lot of people's front porches piled up with boxes from Amazon. You see vans and cars driving around delivering things from large, you know, big box delivery firms. How much of this resolve to buy Canadian is going to be tested by the holidays, do you think? I think it's going to be tested for sure. There's no question about it. You know, when we look at our Black Friday results, we actually, Actually, Canada saw a really nice increase, 6% increase over the Black Friday shopping experience. That's quite a significant increase, especially considering analysts we're expecting it to be relatively flat.

And the main driver for that is actually value-driven and volume. So in Canada, we saw wonderful discounts, really deep discounts. I heard someone saying it was one of the best discounts globally, actually, like discount structures. So in Canada, the price of goods over Black Friday was actually down about 12%. And so that means people were buying based on the discounts, and they brought home more stuff. So what I mean by that is they brought home about 15% more stuff. And that's directly because the discounts were there. And Canadians are really pragmatic shoppers.

I mean, they want to get what they want to get. And they're totally prepared to plan in order to get them to get the items they want at a discount. They're also, I have to let you go, but they're also, I think, wanting to support their community. It's just interesting hearing Julie say that they're increasing their staff, but there's all these little other ripple effects as well. You just wonder whether that would motivate people. I think it would. The story absolutely motivates people, but again, at the end of the day, they still have to deal with the financial situation that they're in. And it doesn't look like the conditions are changing anytime soon. So they're being pragmatic and they're being realistic with

what they can do. Melis, thank you very much for this. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. Melis Panetta is a lecturer of marketing in the Wolford-Lorees-Lazerita School of Business. She was in Waterloo, Ontario. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.