I noticed tonight that all the Canadian-made goods at the supermarket were marked with a red maple leaf on their shelf price tags. All the produce was clearly marked with “Product of ___.” Glad to report that I got Mexican limes, Canadian milk, and a few other things. It wasn’t always possible (I cannot do without my V-8 juice, which comes from the US), but I did the best I could.
Next stop was the liquor store. I’m in Alberta, and the liquor store I visited still had American whiskies and wines on their shelf, but the proprietor said that they had not been selling well in the last few weeks. But I’m happy to report that I came away with a bottle of vodka from northern Alberta, and a case of beer from an independent Calgary-based brewery.
Yep. An absolute boycott is at best impractical, and at worst actually impossible.
But modern companies are extremely sensitive to their cash flow. Even a few percent drop in any given month will have them sit up and take notice, and maybe that will get them to apply what pressure they can on Trump to stop doing stupid shit. So every little bit helps.
I’ve said it many times, Trump doesn’t understand international trade. He thinks “countries” buy and sell things to each other. But ultimately, it’s the people who do the buying and selling, and if the people decide to say “Fuck Trump”, no amount of “international agreement” will produce sales.
I’m reminded of something I saw after the signing of USMCA. Trump’s big win in that was getting a bit more access to Canada’s dairy market. They started selling a new US brand of milk here in Canada.
The Friday before a long weekend, I was shopping for groceries before heading to the cottage, and decided to get a bit of milk. What I saw was amazing. The milk shelf was almost completely out of the traditional Canadian brands we’ve always had. But the shelf of the new US brand was almost completely full. Hundreds of Canadians walked up to that shelf, and decided to buy Canadian. And when that ran out, almost everyone who followed decided to not buy milk at all, instead of buying the milk Trump forced into our market.
Jack Daniels et al. are going to see the same thing, methinks, regardless of whether or not the provincial governments decide to put US brands back on the shelves. It will sit there gathering dust until they decide to pull it for poor sales.
That’s hilarious! The hypocrisy and reality denial is just stunning – it’s nothing short of Orwellian.
The lead headline on CNN right now is “Canadians are fighting back against Trump’s tariffs” and the subhead is very accurate: “In response to the US tariffs, Canada is seeing a surge of national pride, boycotting of American products, and an unfamiliar emotion: anger”. Apparently we don’t want to be the 51st state quite as badly as the orange con-man thinks we do.
I haven’t been out shopping for a while but I need to visit the liquor store tomorrow. My immediate needs won’t involve Canadian products because I favour Swedish vodka, and since Bacardi rum is no longer available (and I wouldn’t buy it if it was) I’ll be stocking up on Cuban Havana Club. If I needed wine – which I don’t – it would be Ontario or French. California wines were out of favour with me anyway as they tend to be grossly overpriced.
For once, the orange con-man is right – he really does inspire patriotism!
Nothing wrong with Cuban anything. Well, except perhaps for their coffee; it’s bad to the first drop, IME. But maybe I’ll have to dip into my humidor for a Cuban cigar to enjoy with my Collingwood Canadian whiskey. Take that, Uncle Sam!
Once we start getting some spring weather, I think I’ll get some small Montecristo Cuban cigars to go with my Cuban rum and sit out on the patio with a fine cigar and glass of rum. I haven’t had a cigar in years. I’m doing my bit to buy all-Canadian but since part of the American dictat is to boycott Cuba, I’m happy to give Cuba all the business that I can!
Real leadership would have removed the drags on the economy when they were identified years ago.
Such as wine. Wolfpup says he’d buy Ontario or French wine. Why not BC wine? Because as I understand it it is more expensive to buy alcohol from other provinces than from other countries. The money leaves Canada and goes to real dictatorships, e.g. cuba, rather than staying in Canada to support fellow citizens.
As I said in another thread, Canadians would rather buy oil from Saudis than buy it from other Canadians in the naive belief that this somehow decreases climate change. All it does is transfer money to those who are less environmentally and socially conscious.
Because, quite frankly, one of the factors with wine is buying things that I know something about. I became familiar with California wines during my travels throughout the US in happier times, and some of my extensive stays in California. But they’re now totally off the table. As a wino wine lover I’m obviously familiar with French wines, and due to my physical proximity to Ontario wine country I’ve visited many of our wineries and fallen in love with many of its products. BC wine is just something unknown to me. If you’re a BC resident, and especially if you’re within range of some of their wineries, I’m sure you’d feel differently.
The key to promoting local Ontario wines for me has been easy access to wineries and their wine tasting experiences. Enthusiasm for non-local wines can be generated by things like liquor stores that employ wine critics (yes, there are some, but not enough) and who feature their favourites along with descriptions of their qualities.
I think that the whole phenomenon of eastern Canada importing oil while the west exports it is due to transportation issues. It’s nothing to do with a “naive” belief in anything.
As a former Ontarian, who has sampled and enjoyed many fine Ontario wines, I can agree with this.
I had to go to BC many times on business in the past, and after many dinners with business associates, I can recommend BC wines. Very, very nice, and although it was occasionally a helluva slog to get there (once or twice, I made a meeting in Toronto in the morning, and a meeting in Vancouver in the afternoon, thanks to the wonder of air travel and the magic of time zones), I always had a nice dinner with colleagues after our Vancouver meeting. BC wine with it, of course; they were anxious to show off their wine.
As I understand things, interprovincial barriers are being dropped in an effort to buy Canadian. So you may see BC wines, and even Nova Scotian ones, on the shelves of your local LCBO soon.
It seems strange that the president didn’t realize the impact of his policies before imposing them. Or that the CEOs of the Big Three auto giants would have to get on the phone to explain he was imperiling an iconic American industry. Perhaps the president’s love for “beautiful” tariffs blinded him from their consequences. Or, is the theatrical thrill of wielding power reserved for the president so seductive that this was meant to be nothing more than a stunt all along?
“April 2 is going to be a very big day for America,” Trump said Thursday, setting up anticipation for yet another tariff deadline day – that is sure to create greater uncertainty that could hamper economic sentiment and infuriate Mexico and Canada.
Trump’s self-imposed halt suggests confusion rather than the strength around which he’s centered his political persona. He looks like he backed down once Canada and Mexico – which threatened their own tariffs – refused to back down themselves. The next time he wields the tariff stick, he risks crying wolf.
In many ways, Trump reminds me of a few of our politicians, who thought, “As was and ever shall be, world without end, amen.” In other words, politicians who thought that the way things are today is the way they always will be, regardless of what policies they introduce. There will be no change in behaviour of the populace, no pushback, no consequences.
But with Trump and his tariffs on Canada and his “51st state” crap, he seems to have never thought that Canadians would take offense. We’d just say, “Oh well,” and roll over and take it; politely, of course, because that’s what he expects. But we have not, and as we have shown in this very thread, we are avoiding American products as much as possible. Many of us have cancelled vacations to the US, troubling its tourist industry, which is heavily reliant on Canadians, due to proximity. Our provinces are working together to ensure that all Canadians have access to Canadian goods, no matter which province they are from, so they don’t have to buy American.
If there is one thing Trump has done, it is to unite Canadians as no Prime Minister ever has.
That whole 51st state thing is just another aspect of American Exceptionalism. The idea is that we’re so exceptional that everyone wants to be part of us. Total BS, of course. Over the years I’ve come to realize that there is something to American Exceptionalism, but it’s that we’re exceptionally bad at so many things.
This could be true, but I think it is an example of underestimating the adversary.
An alternative view is that he’s trying to calibrate tariffs so that harm to the U.S. economy is small while damage to the neighboring economies is enormous:
I think that’s what you’d get without a boycott or tariffs but with the on-again off-again threat of tariffs. The US would continue on as always but Canada would have to constantly be prepping for the latest tariff news, and instability is bad for business.
Before it was clear that Trump was playing games with the imposition of the actual tariffs, I, as an American, would have hoped that Canadians would have done targeted and measured boycotts (to harm Trump supporters, and also not an outsized boycott beyond the actual harm done). But with no clear direction on future tariffs, if I were Canadian I would try to minimize my economic ties with America just because you never know what’s going to happen from week to week.
Could be the governments preventing the transport from happening? eg. building pipelines.
Re. Wine. All I could easily find on the issue that prevents sales across the country. These issues have been known for a long, long time and cost Canadians our competitiveness. Trade war prompts push to remove interprovincial barriers.
I’m in Finger Lakes NY wine country. (And yes, we produce some very good wines.)
And we are going to take a hit on this. NY state has voted reliably blue for POTUS and Senate – but this entire area has been carefully gerrymandered to produce a solid R vote for the House. I have some faint hope that this, along with all the rest of this chaos, will do enough damage within this House district to make that vote a whole lot less solid.
I’ll say it again: I’m pretty sure Trump’s in early stages of dementia. (He can’t always remember how to use a microphone.) One of the first things to go, at least in some types, is judgement of consequences of actions. This can disappear years before the person loses the ability to present reasonably normally in public (or at least normally for Trump, which is a pretty low bar.)
It needs to go beyond this; the government must continue to show a degree of intransigence (and they’re doing a good job of that) regarding negotiations. And frankly we need to arm up, because if the Americans can’t make us beg, they’ll use the military. A porcupine approach is needed; make sure attacking us, in any way, will hurt really badly.
If the US thinks they can collapse the Canadian economy, they’re idiots. They can absolutely harm it, VERY badly, but it cannot be made to fall apart; the apparatus of state remains stable and the county is just too big, too diversified, and has too much access to resources and markets for the economy to entirely fail. The willingness of Canadians to do what it takes to remain free is now pretty obvious. So the Project 2025 folk will move on to the next step. It’s likely the US armed services has already been asked to put plans together.
It’s also wise to just carry on assuming tariffs will remain in place no matter what Trump’s whims are.
Note however that in this situation Canada will necessarily be less well off than the status quo, as trading with anyone other than the US incurs greater transport costs.
Better than giving up sovereignty, but not without costs.
A savvy country (or Union of countries), looking to aggressively court Canadian business right now, could probably enact some sort of customs/duty/import fee/tariff holiday that could sweeten the deal and mitigate the additional expense.
