Gen Z consumers say Buy Canadian movement is unaffordable
Gen Z consumers say Buy Canadian movement is unaffordable
Young people and students say the price of goods wins out every time – because it has to
according to a recent Ipsos Canada study, the Buy Local movement is largely bolstered by older Canadians. Gen Z consumers, on the other hand, are almost six times more likely to switch to an American service such as a bank or telecommunications company, according to the survey.
Carleton University economics professor Frances Woolley noted more than a quarter of youth aged 25-34 are food insecure already. University of Victoria theatre student Samantha Frew said she has heard the calls to buy local. But she still tends to do most of her shopping at Walmart for financial reasons. She also struggles to figure out which companies are wholly Canadian.
“As much as it felt dystopian to go into the liquor store and see posters over all the American liquor, I was like ‘Oh, I wouldn’t have known that unless that poster was directly over it.‘ ”
In Montreal, National Theatre School student Owen Carter said they have boycotted corporations and products for other causes in the past, but cutting out all American goods is proving to be much more difficult.
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Prof. Woolley advises students trying to buy local to shop seasonally.
“Canada grows a lot of things in the summer, not so much in the winter,” Prof. Woolley said. “In winter that means eating things that keep like root vegetables and frozen food.”
She said buying locally does not have to be expensive. She referenced butternut squash and Canadian cabbage, two pieces of produce that can keep all winter and won’t break the bank.
I am disabled. Three kids under 12. We live in an economically depressed area. Our family income is less than half of what is considered extreme poverty for a single person in our province. Less than $20,000/year for a family of five. We are fortunate because our house is paid for and so is our 15 year old vehicle.
Do without. Change products. Buy frozen blueberries over a $6 package. Don't eat blueberries. Eat in season. Look for local food producers. If you live in a city they're literally everywhere and you're being lazy. Rural, grow a garden. Pick your blueberries and freeze them for winter. Learn about food. There are many ways.
Quit being defeatist. Change is possible.
That's the thing though. You own your vehicle and house. For those that don't have a car, paying 100-180/month on transit and living in an apartment you can barely fit a couch in, let alone a deep freeze, bulk buying and storing when things are in season isn't feasible.
The theme of the top comment is don't be defeatist and you come in and reply with a defeatist comment. Your own comment history mentions having a Costco membership to buy laundry detergent. If you're buying from Costco you are buying in bulk so who is your comment even for?
That's all before we get to the disabled with family of 5 part you glanced over. Sure lots of people may not own their homes but most of them are not disabled supporting a good sized family either.
And when I didn't I lived like this as well. It wasn't that long ago I was paying a mortgage and car payment on less income because it's recently risen. Still had those kids. Still was disabled. And our family income alone makes up for those expenses. 5 people on under 20 thousand a year.
Quit making excuses.
Know what else is expensive? Losing your healthcare because the country you bought from annexed us and took it away.
Don't need to go that far just vote PP if you want no more healthcare!
Gen Z consumers, on the other hand, are almost six times more likely to switch to an American service such as a bank or telecommunications company, according to the survey.
This reflects an unwillingness to look, not an inability to afford. The credit union is the cheapest place I could find in town with respect to basic banking, and what are these American telecommunications companies that are doing anything to bring lower prices on that front? Something they saw on a YouTube ad?
I don’t fault people who don’t have the means to pay more to buy Canadian. But I hope people will at least price compare. Often the Canadian versions are the cheaper ones. Even moreso in the future when the full weight of ongoing tariffs hit.
Ahh I see buy cheap products in the short term and be ok with losing the country in the medium to long term.
Don't shop at the big grocery stores, other than Costco and London Drugs. Stick to smaller local markets and farmers markets. You get so much good stuff and both of them help the planet.
Both Superstore and Save On foods have massively inflated prices on Canadian goods. Save On Foods is selling Chapmans and Island Farms ice cream for $12-13, but the US shit for half that. Same with the cheese.
Side note: Kraft bribes grocery store management to push their stuff. Every company does it to a degree, but Kraft used to do a $200 shopping spree for all store management every Christmas.
I do understand the avoid big grocery stores and shop local comments, but No Frills is unionized where I live. I shop there for that reason and have told the management that.
I shop local too, but the two local markets are non-union and I've been told that one of them doesn't treat employees well.
So the choices are too complicated to be covered by any blanket statement.
Superstore absolutely abuses its unionized members.
The union is barely worth a damn unless youre a GenX/Boomer who is grandfathered into Grid A.
Go to Wholesale Club, not Costco. I went shopping at Costco with someone who had a membership there, and it is insane how much they ship in from down south.
Weird. I was actually somewhat impressed with the fact that a lot of the food was Canadian - though I guess from a logistics perspective it makes sense.
Eg. Dairy, eggs, lentils, some cereal, coffee etc.
Without too much attention to prices but heavy attention to where product is from, my grocery bill for two weeks went from 180$ to 240$
I can see that being cost prohibitive to some people, but the monetary hit is worth it to me.
I'd rather support my fellow countrymen
Also, Walmart isn't even that cheap? And the quality is garbage.
Everything you do needs a level of sacrifice, monetary or otherwise. No alternative? Stop buying… silly example but we could not find a potato salad that comes close to Costco’s Stonemill, from USA. Guess what? No more potato salad. Our time dedicated to grocery buying at least doubled, and we are also going to Co-op to find more local stuff. Beer? Buying from my local brewery now (endeavour). Wine? Canadian, Italian, Australian, or Latin America. Rice? Switched to jasmine made in Canada, instead of Ben’s… there is a way!
Please forgive me for the copy-paste from another post, but here's my comment from another posting of this article:
Real Canadian Superstore prices for my hummus since this started:
Swapping from Peru-made lemon juice for my hummus to malt vinegar - cost down from $2.79 to $1.50
No Name Chickpeas to Unico equivalent - $1.50 to $2
Using canola oil and not olive oil as suggested by nearly every recipe - no name olive oil costs $12 for 750 mL whereas canola oil costs $8.29 for 3 L getting you more for less with hardly a change in the recipe
Tahini - found a good recipe from Diabetes Canada that completely removes this ingredient, saving me a solid $10 for a jar
To finish things off, while both Canadian, swapping from sandwich bread to sliced French bread for dipping - $1.97 to $1.25Cost of hummus ingredients goes from $28.26 to $13.04 with the added bonus that one of those ingredients lasts three times as long.
People need to learn substitutions in their recipes, that alone saved a tonne. I pay more for Canola oil personally cause I get Canola Harvest and not the no name brand since they're unionized, but even with that in mind you're paying less than olive oil for like, double the amount.
All the generations are tightening their belts. This is what war is like.
I will need input from a Canadian here, but won't it be fine for someone not finding a canadian alternative to an american product to take a non american alternative?
That's what I've been doing. Order of priority:
- Canadian company
- Non-Canadian, non-American
- American but franchised/operating in Canada
- American
The propaganda will be non stop until after the elections. Attempts to dishearten us so we just surrender to the bullies. They’ll be pushing Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt on all media platforms.
Buying tarified products only supports the tariff
If Canada raised it's prices 33% for a 25% tariff, they would make the same amount of money. Yet Americans would pay 33% more and the whole tariff.
Sadly, people should boycott all tariffed goods
Canadian items are generally the same prices in the in stores, so they just mean their technology, they don't want to give up US tech because they are hopelessly addicted.
I guess it depends on how much each individual really cares - when i was a student and a very poor worker in my early career, buying free range chicken and eggs were (and still is) very important to me, and i purchased accordingly. I never wavered on my personal morals to buy the half price caged chicken. If i really couldn't afford to pay the free range prices that week, I just bought something else.
I get that the Buy Canadian movement can be challenging because it's all-encompassing, but honestly a lot of the times the alternatives aren't even more expensive. And if you're savvy with shopping the specials and flexible with your purchases, it's easier. It's definitely a lot of effort though. I'm celiac and I figured that I will probably still occasionally be buying USA goods just because my choices are so limited - amazingly I haven't had to yet. In fact I had a hell of a time finding gluten free soy sauce recently and thought I was going to have to buy something imported from USA, but finally I found that the sobeys house brand soy sauce is gluten free - and a third the price of the stuff i normally buy.
That said this also reflects why it's important to champion doing the best we can, even if it's not 100% - someone who is carefully replacing 20% of their previously-USA purchases with Canadian, but struggling with the rest, is still doing better than someone who has just given up completely because perfection feels impossible.
Yes, doing your best whenever, wherever should be the goal and not perfection. No one is perfect but doing something is always better than doing nothing at all.
When I was a university student (on student loan), having to pay rent, utilities etc, I recalled surviving on pasta, bananas, frozen veggies, canned tuna/sardines and instant coffee. I would mix a can of tuna into simple tomatoes and frozen veggies pasta sauce, made lots of pasta and eat that for 1 - 2 days. My roommate taught me how to make congee (rice porridge). Very economical. Simply rice, broth, ginger and green onions. We'd make a big pot and eat it for breakfast for a few days. A silver lining though, eating less meat during my university years actually made me feel better and healthier. I continue eating meat only every 2 - 3 days to this day.
Back then, every weekend, my friends would invite me out to bars/pubs to let out steam and I would have to decline 9 out 10. If I went, I would simply purchase 1 drink and made that drink last all night. My liver, was thankful.