I’m not Canadian but I greatly support these measures, so if I may I’d like to weigh in.
I think that manufacturing country and ultimate ownership are probably the biggest key factors, as they dictate most where the lion’s share of money flows in a consumer economy. For example, if there’s American investment/VC/private equity for a company but it’s like 10%, it’s not great but definitely not as bad as a completely international company with locations in Canada.
If you want to get super fine-gained, you can even dig into whether a company outsources a significant portion of its auxiliary labor (e.g. digital infrastructure, customer support, shipping) to international firms, as that can make a difference as well.
Component sourcing is also important but there are a lot of cases where domestic isn’t as feasible due to global supply chain reasons. That’s one that’s going to be much more industry specific. Like, if you’re buying furniture and the wood comes from abroad when there’s a robust domestic timber industry in your country, I think that should be a red flag.
Coming to a final determination on any company is going to be one of those things that exists on a sliding scale and probably would benefit from some sort of scoring effort. Either way, my verdict is that any measure that boycotts the US is worth the effort if it’s done by enough people. Even a few loonies per person spent on local vs international over a broad enough group will make a noticeable impact.
I’m not Canadian but I greatly support these measures, so if I may I’d like to weigh in.
I think that manufacturing country and ultimate ownership are probably the biggest key factors, as they dictate most where the lion’s share of money flows in a consumer economy. For example, if there’s American investment/VC/private equity for a company but it’s like 10%, it’s not great but definitely not as bad as a completely international company with locations in Canada.
If you want to get super fine-gained, you can even dig into whether a company outsources a significant portion of its auxiliary labor (e.g. digital infrastructure, customer support, shipping) to international firms, as that can make a difference as well.
Component sourcing is also important but there are a lot of cases where domestic isn’t as feasible due to global supply chain reasons. That’s one that’s going to be much more industry specific. Like, if you’re buying furniture and the wood comes from abroad when there’s a robust domestic timber industry in your country, I think that should be a red flag.
Coming to a final determination on any company is going to be one of those things that exists on a sliding scale and probably would benefit from some sort of scoring effort. Either way, my verdict is that any measure that boycotts the US is worth the effort if it’s done by enough people. Even a few loonies per person spent on local vs international over a broad enough group will make a noticeable impact.