How We Spend Our Money

Introduction

Since the declaration of economic warfare on Canada by the US Government, there has been lots of talk by Canadians on how we spend our money. Given that our economies are so heavily tied together, and that Canada is primarily a resource provider, not a manufacturer at large, it makes things complicated and difficult. Here are my thoughts on the matter.

Brand Awareness

This is pretty straightforward, but shop with brand awareness in mind. Shopping Canadian is your first best best. Look for the labels. Do your homework before shopping. Talk the the store manager and ask them about the products they sell. Encourage them to put “Made in Canada” labelling on their shelves. Tell anyone and everyone that you are only buying Canadian.

This isn’t always possible however, as our economies are intertwined, and there are a lot of things that we just don’t make here in Canada. So what to do?

There are lots of good European and Asian brands to choose from, and the shipping costs will often be comparable to that of the US, if just a tad more. For example, where there is no Canadian alternative, I am switching all my woodworking purchases to European suppliers entirely.

If forced to buy from a US based brand, remember that the head office being in a blue state or or a red state matters a lot lot. Buy from blue if you can. If the company has a Canadian subsidiary buy from there instead.

Big Box Stores

We all shop at the big box stores, and I would bet that is where a significant chunk of our money goes. I do not necessarily think these stores are the root of evil, as they employ a large number of Canadians, and many of the products sold there are made overseas anyway.

Hardware Stores

In my neck of the woods, there are the usual: Home Depot, Rona, Home Hardware.

Rona

I like this place a lot. With the buy-out of Lowes complete, it is headquartered in Boucherville, Quebec. I buy a fair amount of rough lumber and things there and will be shifting more of my business here.

Home Depot

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, my business will be shifting aware from here. It was my goto store as it is the closest (by a healthy margin) to me, but given that GA is a red state, it is time to move on.

Home Hardware

Home Hardware is based in St Jacobs, Ontario and many of the stores are locally owned and operated. It’s not as big as Home Depot by any means, but between Home Hardware and Rona, I should have my bases covered.

Household and Home Goods

Costco

I’ve seen a few folk calling for boycotting Costco, but I am not sure that is a wise thing to do. They are headquartered in a very blue state (Washington) which was about 7 miles from where I used to live, and in my pre-retirement days, they were a good customer of mine. The people were were great to work with and always super nice. I have the feeling that they are not supportive of the current US regime.

Costco is also very supportive of DEI, and has not backed away from any of their initiatives around LGBTQ despite pressure from the current administration. They treat their employees very very well, especially compared to other retailers. They hire about 55,000 Canadians, buy largely from Canadian suppliers, and the profits stay in Canada.

I will still be shopping at Costco, albeit with heightened brand awareness.

Amazon

This one is harder. Like Costco they are headquartered in the same blue state of Washington, but unlike Costco they have a horrible reputation for how they treat their warehouse employees, which are the bulk of jobs in Canada.

Amazon employs about 41,000 Canadians.

Best Buy

This one is pretty tricky. Although they are a Canadian subsidiary of their US based namesake, they do not operate completely independently of their parent company, and seem to be more tightly coupled. I haven’t shopped there in a while and have no plan to, will be looking for more data on how Canadian they are, if at all.

South of the Border

To my American friends who read this. I know that you are all against this action by your government (otherwise you are not a friend), so I implore you to keep up the good fight to go back to some form of normalcy. Things will never be the same, the trust is gone forever. But we still need to get to a much better place.