Quebecers already boycotting U.S. goods, even though Trump backed off for now
Quebec shoppers are already trying their best to buy local
Chandler Ochs stood in the dairy aisle at an IGA grocery store in a Montreal shopping mall Monday afternoon and stared at an empty shelf.
This is one of two or three grocery shops Ochs visits most weeks in an effort to save on specific items. The shelf was usually where he gets cottage cheese, but it seemed others had gotten to it first.
"I'm thinking it might be similar to COVID, where people are, in response to the tariffs, just going to take stuff off the shelves and try to store as much so they're least affected — but then it ends up hurting everyone," said Ochs, who is a recently graduated research assistant at a hospital. "I do have to watch how much I spend."
While Ochs was shopping, a sustained effort by the Canadian government, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in an afternoon call with United States President Donald Trump, was underway to obtain a 30-day delay on 25 per cent tariffs. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum had, hours before, secured just that.
Shortly after 4:30 p.m., Trudeau announced a series of commitments to improve Canada's border security had helped convince Trump to hold off on the tax he'd been threatening since before he was sworn into office last month.
But most shoppers CBC spoke with at Montreal's Alexis Nihon shopping mall said they were set on boycotting U.S. products by now, whether the tariffs came into effect or not.
Leigh-Ann Ladouceur, who was perusing a wall of coffee bags, said she's already been buying mostly local products.
"I try Quebec, but I at least keep it within Canada," said Ladouceur, whose favourite coffee brand is Kicking Horse, from British Columbia, though she noticed its prices have gone up lately, so she was looking at other options.
"I know that in Quebec, they started putting a Quebec sign on them," she said, pointing to a row of Quebec coffees. The IGA had also begun putting the symbol, a bolded Q, on the bottom right corner of its digital price tags.
'Can't believe we're living this'
Ladouceur said Trump's comments about Canada have worried her and that she'd like to see a stronger response from Canada.
"He scares me. He does scare me. You hope there's nothing true behind it and that he can't really enforce it," she said, referring to the tariffs as well as the U.S. president's repeated remarks about making Canada a 51st state. "I can't believe we're living this right now."
In the next aisle, Danielle Laberge was looking for some non-American bread. She, too, has always tried to buy local. Hailing from the countryside outside Montreal and near the U.S. border, Laberge said she grew up going to farmers' markets.
"My reaction is that I don't want to give into fear. I find that he's trying to scare us. If that's what motivates people, the day it's all going to be solved, they're going to go back to their old habits," Laberge said. "It's funny to say, but I fear that fear stops us from doing things."
Fear can also be a great motivator, though, and for Robbie MacArthur, a shopper who works in sales in the aerospace industry, it's the feeling he had when he got back from vacation this morning.
"I am [worried]. I was very keen to discuss with my coworkers how this might all play out for us. We do a lot of business across the border," MacArthur said. The aerospace industry is estimated to represent 10 per cent of Quebec's export market.
So when MacArthur walked into IGA wanting an orange and realized the ones on sale were from Florida, he thought, "maybe I'll get some apples instead."
Thinking about the future
Sana Buchanan, a Dawson College student who was grabbing snacks with two friends, said she spoke about Trump and the possibility of tariffs often with her parents.
"It scares me a lot and it makes me worry for my future a little bit and for others' futures," said Buchanan, adding she's noticed prices going up for food and clothes, the two main things she buys.
In the basement of the shopping complex, a vintage store opened a couple years ago. Owner Sara Zem says she's noticed a shift in who buys second-hand clothing nowadays.
"Young people were already buying it because they like the way it looks, but because life is more expensive, we're seeing more regular people — dads and moms — shopping for themselves. Whereas before, they'd go more to Winners, let's say," Zem said.
She hopes the economy and more awareness about consumerism will continue to encourage people to buy vintage.
Armand Gazeryan, the owner of a jewellery store near the mall's entrance to Montreal's Metro system, said he buys anywhere between $100,000 and $200,000 in products from the U.S. every year.
If tariffs come into effect, he says he doesn't mind, "I just won't buy from them anymore. I'll go made in Canada or made in Quebec. It's not a problem, there are lot of a wholesalers here," Gazeryan said.
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