The Editor,
In response to the looming American tariff threat, these days many Cornwallites have been spending a fair bit of extra time (and perhaps more money) at their local grocery store, in a patriotic attempt to avoid “buying American.” In so doing, here’s betting, selection by selection, they’ve probably been thinking that this is an albeit small way to both sock one in the jaw to The Donald, while at the same time helping support the Canadian economy.
But beware! For according to top Canadian food industry analysts, and the non-profit Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which represents over 100,000 Canadian small and mid-size enterprises, maybe we need to all very much “stand on guard for thee” and think twice!
For it is claimed that in attempting to boycott American products, we are liable to be doing as much harm as good – and probably more of the former. Thanks to NAFTA/USMCS, since 1994 our economy has grown considerably, but concurrently this has resulted in all forms of Canadian production becoming firmly enmeshed with that of our southern trading partner. And food manufacturing is most certainly no exception.
For in 2025, what does in fact constitute a truly Canadian product anyway? Unfortunately, the answer is very far from clear-cut. Even entirely US-located food producers pretty much all source at least some, and often all their ingredients here. Take American-owned Doyon Honey and Billy Bee. Both are produced south of the border, and yet source 100% Canadian honey. Miss Vickie’s American chip manufacturer uses Canadian potatoes, as is the case with PepsiCo’s Ruffles and Lays. And the list goes on and on……
Furthermore, those product labels are so very misleading, especially when it comes to “Made in Canada.“All that this indicates is the location of a product’s final and most significant transformation. All of the ingredients may well be 100% foreign-sourced, as well as some of the labour. In fact, it’s only a “Product of Canada” label that can guarantee all the major ingredients, processing and labour are 100% Canadian. But, that being the case in just one in ten of all the products on our grocery store shelves. Well – good hunting, unless of course the store has kindly added some of those little Canadian flag shelf stickers.
It gets even messier when you factor in the fact that a considerable number of American food companies now make their products for the Canadian market right here north of 49, be that partially or entirely. (According to StatsCan, across all sectors, American companies directly employ close to 1.5 million Canadians). Take just one grocery player as an example — American-owned Coca-Cola. It alone has 50 major plants, spread across all 10 provinces, employing in direct jobs alone more than 5,700 Canadians. Just one its new operations, opening in Richmond, B.C. in August 2024, created 550 new, well-paying jobs.
So, were the current boycotts to continue and expand long-term, all such American-owned companies would logically end up scaling back their Canadian operations. The result? Not only the direct jobs lost, but all that hard-to-tally collateral damage too, rippling through entire communities and hitting all local businesses — particularly service industries like restaurants.
Yet, when all is said and done, waving the Maple Leaf by boycotting any single American company at least stands a chance of paying off. Take Kraft/Heinz for example. In 2014 it closed its tomato ketchup processing plant in Leamington, Ont., moving all production south, resulting in over 1,000 direct local job losses. There followed a marked across-Canada consumer boycott of all Kraft/Heinz products. Profits declined sufficiently, so much so that by 2020 this proved enough to make the company blink. Its Canadian ketchup production returned, this time to its Montreal facility, but once more the company became the largest purchaser of Ontario tomatoes.
Alan Scrivener,
Cornwall
