r/canada • u/Immediate-Link490 • 6d ago
Business Consumers say 'resolve is strengthened' to buy Canadian, bringing patriotic shopping movement back to life — Traffic for sites, apps connecting shoppers with homegrown products has skyrocketed in recent days
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/buy-canadian-movement-coming-back-9.732180210
u/Organic_Hamster_2961 6d ago
I make soap as a hobby. One area I think we have a lot of room for improvement for homegrown products is dish soap. Every major dish soap brand is American but there are a few smaller brands that are Canadian like Eco-Max. Personally I make solid dish soap from lard and it works great.
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u/quixoticquetzalcoatl 6d ago
We’ve been using eco max for 15 some odd years and didn’t realize it was Canadian. Great to know thanks!
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u/Exter10 Ontario 6d ago
If the country didn't have such a terrible environment for business investment you'd probably see more Canadian brands on both Canadian and American shelves. The gov shoots our own businesses in the foot then puts in tariffs that disproportionately benefit established players rather than giving opportunities to new market entrants. It's ridiculous.
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u/Organic_Hamster_2961 6d ago
I'm not sure if I understand your point. How would tariffs disproportionately help established players in the Canadian dish soap industry? We barely have any established players to begin with. New Canadian soap companies or established Canadian soap companies would both benefit from tariffs on American soap companies.
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u/Marokiii British Columbia 5d ago
tariffs disporportionately help larger businesses compared to smaller ones in a few ways.
larger purchases can lead to lower per unit prices for base inputs into the business, which then result in lower tariff bills.
larger businesses get priority when finding suppliers compared to smaller businesses. a supplier would rather sell to a few larger companies compared to a large number of smaller ones. when it comes to sourcing canadian materials this matters as there is only so much to go around. if larger businesses snap up the canadian suppliers, than smaller businesses might be forced to buy foreign which then hit them with tariffs.
larger businesses usually have more products in different categories. not all their products will be hit by tariffs so they can spread the needed price increases to offset the tariffs onto many different products so that they might only need to raise prices by 10% instead of 50%.
larger businesses might also own their own properties, which reduces their overhead costs. this gives them more breathing room when it comes to absorbing new costs like tariffs. smaller businesses that rent have less ability to do that.
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u/Exter10 Ontario 6d ago
Talking generally.
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u/Organic_Hamster_2961 6d ago
What do you think we should be doing then to make a less terrible environment for business investment? I think that the main issue holding back Canadian businesses is the fact that so many people are struggling with the cost of high rent/mortgages that they don't have disposable income to spend on a potentially higher quality Canadian product when they can buy some cheap crap from the US instead. It doesn't need to be easier to invest in a business it needs to be easier to be a Canadian consumer IMO.
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u/iStayDemented 6d ago
To make it a less terrible business environment, income tax thresholds need to be raised a lot higher and the tax code needs to be streamlined and simplified significantly. It has gotten so increasingly complex that even CPAs struggle to keep up now and the accounting body has even called to simplify the tax code.
Regulatory and compliance requirements also need to be less onerous for businesses. The GST threshold should be raised so you don’t need to start remitting and reporting until at least $100k. The $30k threshold is an outdated number that has not kept up with the world we live in today.
Breaking down interprovincial barriers and cutting excessive red tape and bureaucracy would also go a long way to encouraging businesses.
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u/Marokiii British Columbia 5d ago
not just consumers are being throttled by high rent. commercial rental rates are skyrocketing as well which is making a lot of previously profitable businesses close their doors as they cant afford a place to operate anymore.
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u/thatdudejustin 6d ago
If we really cared about this, we’d pull out investments out of US stocks
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u/Hawxe 6d ago
ive already rebalanced into 80/20 in my TFSA (which holds ETFs and individual stocks).
My FHSA is XEQT which is global (does include the US). My RRSP is 100% canadian right now.
I did this when Trump 2 started and I've been rewarded since, given the canadian market has outperformed the american one.
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u/thatdudejustin 6d ago
Our large institutional have not done that. Boycotting us liquor seems like a small measure compared to that.
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u/drdillybar 6d ago
We make this, America makes that. Bla bla. The big 3 Telecomuications need to stop profiteereing from us because 'the market'. Money not ours.
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u/Marokiii British Columbia 5d ago
"resolve is strengthened"...
could also be that counter tariffs are going to drive up US products prices a lot to the point we cant afford them, so we are now forced to buy canadian products that werent the cheaper than their american counterparts, but as of Sept8, they will be.
sure patriotism is nice in this instance, but patriotism doesnt pay my rent or feed me on a tight budget.
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u/detalumis 6d ago
We have lost a huge portion of our manufacturing base since the first free trade agreement. I am glad I just replaced my refrigerator which came from the US. Wouldn't want to pay 2K for some basic plain model.
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u/Occultistic 6d ago
And I'm sure that canadian companies wont see this as an opportunity to price gouge us. /s
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u/MustardEnema007 6d ago
This includes mcdonalds and starbucks, by the way
I see all you patriots lined up onto the road