Hey all,
Recently I’ve been trying to work on purchasing more products made here in Canada as opposed to down south or overseas, reason being to help decrease my environmental footprint, as well as to keep my money supporting businesses based in Canada, especially with the tariffs that might be coming in the near future.
I was curious if there were some good tips to help find products made within our borders. Some stuff has been easy, like swapping from Silk to Earth’s Own for example due to labeling on the package that states where the product was manufactured, but other stuff is a bit of a pain since it doesn’t seem to indicate where the product is manufactured or at the very least if it was imported, just where the company’s head office is located.
While my main concern is with groceries since I’ve been trying to purchase more second-hand as of late, I was curious as to what some good all-around tips are for finding Canadian products. I’m willing to spend a little more if needed, I prefer to bank my money in my morals and not in convenience.
Are you in BC? Even if not, you can find out at this BuyBC Gov site what food is in season, so that you are most likely to be able to find locally produced foods. Other provinces probably have similar sites and campaign pages.
For general products like furniture, they exist, you just have to search for them, for example start with “Canadian Hardwood table” as a search, then you can vet a site and its products whether they are based in Canada (cross-reference with a mapping tool).
Be aware there are some things, like microelectronic components are produced so much cheaper overseas that you will not be able to find anything produced domestically off-the-shelf for less than 10x the price from China, so you may have to live with some parts coming from elsewhere but sold, designed or assembled locally.
Go and visit your local smaller retailers, try to search up stores that sell the mind of thing you are looking for. Note that you should check google reviews that they are actually the retail business you are looking for and not just a corporate office if you will visit. Also note that in some areas of Toronto and Vancouver you may have trouble finding information in English about stores, as there is a concentration of services tailored toward a population speaking another language.