Customers shop in a Real Canadian Superstore location in Toronto on March 3.Katherine KY Cheng/Getty Images
It is fast becoming a common, even communal, experience for Canadians: picking up a product in the grocery store, scrutinizing the fine print on its label – and then putting it back on the shelf once the words “Made in the U.S.A” are spotted.
Ottawa and the provinces have all rolled out their own responses to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and annexationist bluster. Some of those responses (like Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s move to slap a 25-per-cent levy on electricity exports to the United States) were withdrawn after Mr. Trump threatened to retaliate.
But Canadians have had a counter-tariff response of their own – at the check-out counter – that will be all but impossible to counter. Mr. Trump and his supporters are about to find out just how deeply upset Canadians are by his trade war and talk of turning this country into the 51st state.
The early indications are that Canadian consumers are more than willing to put their money where their patriotism is. According to a Globe business story this week, cross-border travel is falling sharply: Statistics Canada data show that Canadians made 1.2 million fewer round-trip visits to the United States in February, a 23-per-cent drop from February, 2024. CNN reported this week that Maine hoteliers are seeing big drops in summer bookings, some as much as 90 per cent.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tried to mock the idea of maple-leaf tourism boycott earlier this month, saying 3.3 million Canadians had visited his state. “That’s not much of a boycott in my book,” he said.
We agree, Governor – because the number you cite was from 2024, before a U.S. President launched a trade war against his country’s biggest trading partner and closest ally. Mr. DeSantis’ misplaced braggadocio actually served to underscore the vulnerability of his state to a Canuck exodus.
If that happens (and here’s hoping), there won’t be much that Mr. DeSantis or Mr. Trump will be able to do about it. The individual choices of millions of Canadians can’t be targeted with countervailing duties.
Canadians are flexing their economic muscle at home, as well. Loblaw Cos. Ltd. has pointed to rising demand for Canadian products. Empire Company Ltd., which owns the Sobeys grocery chain, says the proportion of its revenue from U.S. products is “rapidly dropping.”
Retailers have also accommodated patriotic purchasers with signage that flags – sometimes literally – a Canadian product. This week, Loblaw also started using a symbol of a T inside a black triangle for imported products from the United States made more costly by tariffs. That may be the grocer’s attempt to insulate itself from criticism over a surge in prices for U.S. imports, but the symbol functions equally well as a what-not-to-buy guide.
But retailers need to do more than simply slap up new signs. If Canadians are prepared to pay more for domestic alternatives, grocery retailers should make sure that such alternatives appear on their shelves. (A sagging Canadian dollar and the long-term profit drag of U.S. tariffs should make that choice even easier for grocers.)
The experience of Sprague Foods in Belleville, Ont. is instructive. The 98-year-old cannery makes products that compete with some of the most familiar U.S. food brands, including Bush’s beans and Campbell’s soups. The arrival of tariffs has threatened the company’s U.S. sales; it will have to raise prices soon for its U.S. customers if Mr. Trump follows through on his tariff threats.
Canadian sales have risen substantially, the company says. But any hope of domestic sales making up for any lost U.S. customers would be dependent on more Canadian grocers clearing out shelf space for its products.
There is an opportunity waiting for a major grocery chain (and retailers in other sectors) to meet the moment and offer a much expanded range of Canadian-sourced products. Consumers in this country are clearly hungering for a way to shift their purchases from U.S. producers to domestic alternatives.
Of course, such decisions largely come down to dollars and cents (or more accurately, in the food business, fractions of a cent). But food retailers, especially, should see the trade war for what it is: a heaven-sent opportunity to rebuild brand equity that was badly (if somewhat unfairly) depleted during Canada’s recent inflationary bout.
Canadians are ready to fight their own tariff war, one can of beans at a time. Which retailers will enlist alongside them?