U.S. tariff threat pushes Islanders to buy local, pay attention to product labels
People are turning to Canadian goods, but are they really Canadian?
Islanders are pushing back in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threats by shopping local and paying more attention to where their products come from.
Ghislaine O'Hanley started a social media campaign called 100 Local Dollars with her friends a decade ago, encouraging Islanders to spend $100 at local businesses and share their purchases on social media using the hashtag #100localdollars.
Now, with the tariff threats from Trump, she's decided to revive the campaign.
"Here, we're so lucky on Prince Edward Island that we could be connected so closely to a lot of the food and produce that we can buy locally," O'Hanley told CBC's Island Morning.
On Saturday, Trump announced a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian and Mexican imports. To counter U.S. tariffs, Canada slapped back with a 25 per cent tariff on $30 billion in goods imported from the U.S.
But on Monday, Trump agreed to put a pause on his tariff plans for at least one month after talks with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to tighten border security.
Despite the pause, O'Hanley said she's determined to continue supporting local products.
During the original campaign, she spent money on a range of Island-made goods, from goat milk soap and pottery to fresh flowers and concert tickets.
"I think what surprised me the most was realizing that I was already spending at least $100 a month on local goods and products and services."
'Made in Canada' vs 'Product of Canada'
O'Hanley isn't alone in her efforts. On Island Morning Wednesday, some Islanders also called to share how they are boycotting American products and services like deleting Amazon accounts, and paying more attention to which products they buy are Canadian.
But buying Canadian isn't always straightforward.
According to the Competition Bureau, there's a key difference between products labelled Product of Canada and those marked Made in Canada.
For a product to be labelled Product of Canada, at least 98 per cent of the total direct costs of producing or manufacturing the goods must be incurred in Canada.
Meanwhile, Made in Canada claims require at least 51 per cent of the total direct costs of producing or manufacturing the goods to be incurred in Canada, and the claim must be accompanied by a qualifying statement indicating the product contains imported parts.
This distinction means that a Product of Canada label signals a higher level of local content than Made in Canada.
P.E.I. business seeing uptick
One Island company producing Product of Canada goods is the P.E.I. Sea Salt Company. The business, founded by Darren Blanchard, produces handcrafted natural sea salt.
"I get my water from the North Shore. I bring it to my facility, boil it down over a seven-day period and produce 100 per cent — I'm not going to say organic — authentic sea salt," Blanchard told CBC.
This year marks the company's 10th anniversary, and it was recently featured in Yahoo's Made in Canada grocery guide, alongside P.E.I. brands like ADL and Cavendish Farms.
Blanchard said he has noticed an uptick in business the past few days.
"A lot of interesting calls and stuff like that, and people inquiring just about, you know, products and stuff like that," he said, adding that many seem to be finding his company through Google searches.
"It's a great thing, and it's too bad that it has to come to this for us as Canadians to focus on Canadian products, because there's unbelievable local Canadian products that people are just unaware of."
With files from Island Morning