The Current - Trying to ‘Buy Canadian’? Here’s what to check at the store

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

“Buy Canadian!” became a rallying cry under the threat of Trump’s punishing tariffs, but how easy is it to find Canadian products on supermarket shelves? And what’s the difference between something labelled “Made in Canada” versus “Product of Canada”? Matt Galloway takes a trip to the grocery store to see what people are putting in their baskets, even with the tariffs on hold. 

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So that was quite a day yesterday. After a call with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, US President Donald Trump decided to pause the planned 25% tariffs on Canadian goods. But despite the 30 day delay, Canadians are still, let's be blunt about it, pissed. There are many Canadians who feel outraged by calls to become the 51st state, and across the country,

there have been collective calls to buy Canadian. A few hours before the tariff pause was announced, I headed to the grocery store in Toronto to see what fills a Canadian cart. All right, let's get a cart and do some grocery shopping. So, if we were just looking for things that are grown in Ontario, I mean as soon as you come in, there's these bell peppers, product of Mexico, not for us.

Tomatoes from Mexico, mandarin oranges from the USA. I wonder if you can get any fruit at this time of the year. Oh look, these tomatoes here, a package of little cherry tomatoes are from Ontario. We can get these. That's great. And these two, these salad tomatoes, the larger ones,

also product of Canada. There's apples from Ontario. Mini cucumbers, also a product of Ontario. So you can get some fruit and some vegetables. What about on this side? Spain, Mexico, USA, USA, Mexico. Look there's carrots, multicoloured carrots, product of Ontario, but your cauliflower is from the United States. The lettuce is from the US, but not the baby carrots.

Up here, these greens, if you're looking for Romaine lettuce, that's from the USA. Like all the lettuce is from the USA. Have you been looking to try and find some, some grown in Canada things? I'm buying all, yeah. Are you? Oh yeah, yeah.

Oh, you, oh, oh, oh, it's not going away. We're from CBC Radio, can we ask you a couple questions? Sure. Sure, tell us what your name is. Gail Hunston. And tell us what you're doing here now. You're doing your grocery shopping. I'm doing my weekly grocery shopping. You have the list there. And are you looking for buy-in, made-in-Canada things?

Yes, completely. So far I've been able to get everything that was either Canada or Spain or some other place. But I've just been looking at the lettuce and I can't find so far anything that's not USA. Why are you doing this? Oh, because of the tariffs. Yeah, it's a protest for sure. Do you think it's going to be difficult to fill the cart? I mean, the list, there's a lot on that list. Do you think it's going to be difficult to check everything off

and not have to buy something grown in the United States? Oh no, I'm really going to try. Good luck. Okay, thank you. Thanks for talking to you. Thank you. Should we head out of the vegetable section into... What about like in the packaged foods, if we go down this way? What about cereal?

If you're looking for breakfast cereals, what do we have here? Maybe you want like some Cheerios. I have no idea. It says product of USA. OK, so your Cheerios are I have no idea. It says product of USA. Okay so your Cheerios are not made in Canada. What is this? Don't try this at home kids with the lucky charms. Product of USA as well. There you go. No lucky charms for you. Life cereal. Quaker life. Made in Canada from domestic and imported ingredients. So you get both kinds there. Great.

Maple syrup, if you wanna get your Canadian maple syrup, no shortage of that. Peanut butter, the giant maple leaf right on that package there, it says prepared in Canada. Now if you're looking for beans here, like chickpeas and things like that, where are these from? Are you shopping locally? I'm from CBC.

I'm from CBC. Can I ask you a couple questions? Sure. Tell us what your name is. Jeffrey. Jeffrey. What are you looking for here? Anything that I can replace American brands with. What have you got so far? Right now I'm going to Clark beans, cheddar from Quebec, cottage cheese from Ontario.

Nothing Americans going in my shopping bar. Are there things that you have had to do without because you've made that decision? Sure, absolutely, but I would rather do without them cater to what Trump is going to do to us. Thanks for being here, thank you. Thank you. Good luck. Let's have a look down here if we were to make some pasta. You might want some tomatoes. These tomatoes are from California. These tomatoes product of Italy. Italy number one, Mutti.

These are Canadian though. These are products of Canada. These Unico Diced Tomatoes. You could get these. We're working on it. Yeah, we all are. Can I ask you about that? Do you mind?

We're from CBC. Oh no. Tell us what your name is. Elaine. Elaine, tell me about buying Canadian. Well, with what's going on in the States, I refuse to buy anything American. I would cancel my trip to the States. I'm telling people, forget it. Oh my goodness.

And I'll pay more for product if I have to rather than the States. Why is that so important to you? Because we're Canadian. And we have that bully over there, so like, whatever. We're not discussing politics, but... Thank you. Good luck. Oh, my pleasure. Yeah, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Take care, Elaine like, whatever. We're not discussing politics. Thank you, good luck. Oh, my pleasure. Yeah, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. Take care. As you heard, it's not particularly easy to keep it Canadian. There are things out there, but you have to be paying close attention to what you're putting into the cart. Fred Nelson is trying to help with that. He runs a Facebook group called Bye Canadian. First, Fred is in Vernon, British Columbia. Fred, good morning. Good morning. It's interesting in talking to people.

We just ran into a load of people who were making the decision to look very carefully, perhaps, at what they were buying, a decision that would be different than before these tariffs were announced and before the pause was announced. So you're surprised that there's been a real uptake in people who are wanting to buy Canadian?

Not so much. I think we're slowly becoming activists that we're really trying to become much more supportive of our country. Tell us what you do with the Facebook group, Buy Canadian First. It's kind of crowdsourcing information, right? It is.

You know, where I really started this whole thing is I had found a list of things that were posted as being Canadian, and, you know, I had shared that in a local group, and I got trolled pretty quickly because people found that some of the things on the list weren't really accurate, that kind of thing. And I thought, well, and one person actually said, well, I should be doing my research. And I realized it's kind of hard to research things across Canada because one thing is

because of trade barriers and because of the vast size of our country. So I created this group and started asking people to post the products that you source that are Canadian. And that's really gained momentum. A lot of people are getting involved to do that, to be able to share their locally resourced products that, you know, they're purchasing and they're trying to support. So it's been a really good thing. Are there some Canadian products that you have discovered in the last week or so that you didn't

know, but that you didn't know were Canadian? Oh, absolutely. There's, you know, from here in British Columbia, there's so many things that we see coming across through the group that we don't see. You know, simply one on the top of my head, there's one called a Caprina Farms soap, it's a hand soap. We don't see that out here. Apparently it's available through Dollarama. That's going to be a go-to soap rather than an Irish spring or other types of soaps from going forward. St. Gene's Cannery Tuners and Sam's on the West Coast here has been one that we used to purchase.

We've kind of forgotten about it, and we've gone back to him. Another one, Caslo Sourgo, pastas from this little village in Caslo, British Columbia. Incredible pasta. It's so much better to be buying this type of thing, supporting our, you know, local, regional and national brands. It's been exciting to see how much product is really out there that, you know, we really don't get to see.

Are there things that you have had to cut out of your life because they come from the States? Yeah, there has been. Uh, you know, it hasn't been painful. Uh, my, my wife and I are both foodies and we've gone through and gone through our cupboard. And we're actually quite surprised by how much we do already by Canadian.

It was just choice. It wasn't, it wasn't an activist thing. That was just what we did. we did and the varieties we liked. But yeah, there's some things we've definitely been playing back and the further we go into this, the much more we're going to be zooming in on eliminating like personal care products, deodorants, and that kind of stuff. That will definitely be sourced out Canadian

over the old fashioned, old spice and those kinds of things. Just before I let you go, do you think this is gonna last? I mean, this was supposed to be the day that these tariffs are coming into place. There's now a 30 day reprieve that may go longer. They may never come into place, but who knows? Do you think this bi-Canadian focus is going to last?

You know, we went through the pandemic where everybody jumped on board, and well, not everybody, but a lot of us jumped on board, and did what we could. We wore our masks and got our shots and that kind of thing. And slowly over time things wane. But now instead of just having an invisible virus, we've got an orange plague that is going to continue to come back and haunt us.

So it's going to be a constant reminder. And I think it's gonna last. I think people are going to continue to say, no, no, we're gonna, we can do something. We can stand up to you in our own little way. And one of the best ways we can do it is by purchasing our own products, something with the maple leaf on it

before we purchase anything else in the United States. Fred, good to talk to you. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Fred Nelson runs the Facebook group, Buy Canadian First. He was in Vernon, British Columbia.

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Michael von Masso is a professor of food, agriculture, and resource economics at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Mike, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. What do you make of what's happening now?

It's not just in, in local grocery stores. You see this all over online. You talk to people. I was just surprised in walking into the shop how many people were looking at labels and paying very close attention to where things are coming from. What do you make of that?

Well, I think it's interesting, and I think Canadians as consumers have a right to buy what they want. I think that it's not always easy to buy Canadian. I think if you look at some of those lists, uh, there are things that aren't true and that, that, that are actually Canadian and, and where the line is, uh, really is difficult to determine is

something we need to determine individually. The other, the other thing I think Matt, if I may, is that you talked about, oh, well, uh, these products are, you know, we bought blueberries from Peru. We don't have a fight with non-US products right now. And you know, Canada is an exporting nation and I have no problem with trying to, we're trying to buy local as much as we can.

But as you said, we're pissed at the Americans. We're not pissed at avocados from, uh, from Mexico or blueberries from Peru or beans from Peru. And so, uh, I think we have to decide as individuals if we're buying Canadian or if we're expressly just not buying an American. Fair enough. Can you help, one of the things that was difficult is trying to understand some of the language here.

The label might say made in Canada. It might say a product of Canada. It might say prepared in Canada. What's the daylight between all of those? Okay. Product of Canada means it's made in Canada by Canadians, uh, and with Canadian ingredients. There may be, you know, a little bit of spices

or things that come from other places. So product of Canada is, is, is a hundred percent made in Canada or prepared in Canada. come from other places. So product of Canada is 100%. Made in Canada or prepared in Canada says it's made by Canadians, but it isn't necessarily made with Canadian ingredients. And so made in Canada might have Canadian ingredients in it, but it might have more in, for example,

while we grow sugar beets in Ontario, most of those get exported for processing. So sugar isn't considered a Canadian product. So if you have something that has more than a couple of percent of sugar, it can't necessarily be a product of Canada because part of those ingredients are coming from, are coming from outside the country.

So there's, there, it, you know, and people talk, Matt, about American companies versus Canadian companies. I've seen some of those lists. And you know, we have American companies take Lay's potato chips as a subsidiary of PepsiCo. They are producing potato chips with Canadian labor, with Canadian potatoes right here in Cambridge, Ontario. And so, you know, we have, we, we have to decide individually where the line is and, and what we're willing to accept. It was interesting in looking at the

vegetables, uh, the, you know, the tomatoes I used in my salad were grown in Ontario. Um, but it was hard as we heard to buy lettuce. So you end up with cabbage instead that might be raised and grown here in Canada. This is the time of the year where local fruits and vegetables could be hard to find in many parts of the country.

What impact do you think the push to buy Canadians is going to have on those items? Well, I think, you know, we need to decide two things. The first is, are we willing to be flexible? As Canadians, we're very much creatures of habit. And if broccoli was in my basket last week, it's likely to be in my basket this week.

Plus you're also used to, part of the habit is also that you have access now to everything all the time, right? Exactly. Exactly. So if it's important to you to buy Canadian, then think about, perhaps you can't eat broccoli right now. You know, we went much like you to the grocery store

over the weekend and we bought carrots, we bought some of those cherry tomatoes that are hot house. We bought beets, which were Canadian. So those were storable. We also looked at buying frozen vegetables, which isn't our preference, but we could get Ontario frozen vegetables. We could get varieties that we might not have been able to get fresh. So we have to make those sorts of decisions whether we're willing to be flexible. We also

bought some green beans that were produced in Peru and said, well, we're not mad at Peru, let's buy some green beans. So it depends again, where your line is and what your individual priorities are. And what you can afford as well, because sometimes that can be more expensive, right? Yep, for sure. I think there are definitely cases where domestic product will be more expensive, which is why we've gotten into the habit of buying non-domestic products. And that's one of the beauties of trade frankly, is that we export what we're good at and we import what we're not good at.

And in the winter, that's often fresh fruits and vegetables, but it doesn't always need to be more expensive, Matt. We bought, as I said, we bought bagged carrots the other day. They were Ontario produced, they were stored, and they weren't more expensive than some of the alternatives. They were just different.

So, so it can be more expensive, but it doesn't have to be. Do you think this is going to have any impact on president Trump's strategy? I mean, there's, there's something that's happening and people feel good about this, but from your perspective, is this going to move the needle at all?

I think it has the potential. We have to remember that we're a pretty small part of the American economy, but just because it's not sort of swinging the needle at the national level, there will be companies who feel it when we change our choices. And if they are making noise up the value chain, remember, agriculture is a big part of the Republican base.

So if we're changing what we're buying and individual firms are feeling that, I think there is the potential to move the needle a little bit. I also think that I have never seen, or maybe never is a bit, I haven't in a long time seen Canadians as united as they are now. And so doing some of these things that close the gaps between us, there's something positive about that as well. Just the possibility to move the needle on. I mean, I'm old enough to remember endless discussions on inter-provincial trade. We've been talking about this as long, I think,

as high speed rail in this country. Is this the opportunity for us to be able, we're just hearing about things that are available in British Columbia, for example, that might not be available elsewhere in the country, to be able to move things seamlessly across this giant country of ours? Well, I think we can. I mean, we have some work to do on inter-provincial barriers, but it's not a silver bullet in this instance, right? We've seen the evolution of these supply chains, which have been focused more north-south

than they have east-west. We can move things east-west. That might get a little bit more expensive. Some of the inter-provincial barriers are regulatory rather than actual barriers or tariffs. And, and I think we can make progress, but it's not a silver bullet in this, in this instance. It's sort of incrementally things we can do to

reduce this pressure. I'll let you go, but do you think this will stick? This feels to your point, um, that there is a sense of, of, of, you know, shared purpose among many Canadians people feel, you know, whether it's the flag or, they're rallying together around something. Is this going to stick beyond this moment? Do you think the idea of trying to support

domestic industries and support the people who are making things here in this country? Well, I think there will be, it will lose some momentum as these movements do all of the time. A year ago we saw a, we saw a grocer, we saw a grocer, people avoiding certain grocers and that didn't continue.

But I think some people will change their habits. And we are very much creatures of habit. And I think we'll see people change what they're buying and continue that because they've liked it and it's worked out well for them. So yeah, I think there is some staying power here. Mike, good to talk to you.

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me, Matt. Have a great day. And you, Michael Von Masso is a professor of food, agriculture, and resource economics at the University of Guelph. Are you planning to buy more Canadian? How are you doing that?

Are the things that you're willing to go without because you want to support local producers here and perhaps want to cut out those in the United States, let us know what you're doing and how the news of tariffs is impacting your shopping. Email us, thecurrent at cbc.ca. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.