THUNDER BAY — Thunder Bay’s Memorial Home Hardware Building Centre is promoting its Canadian-made products in response to the threat of American tariffs.
The store began identifying its numerous Canadian products by putting little Canadian flags on them and pointing them out to customers on Monday.
When the tariffs were first announced, Chris Sauer, a dealer/owner of the store, said it brought a lot of apprehension and fear of an economic downturn for people, but his staff and he have tried their best to step up.
“For the first time, people really are looking at where a product is made. We have customers come in and that’s the first question they ask, not the last question,” said Sauer.
“I’ve had customers pick up a product, if it wasn’t made in Canada, they put it back on the shelf and pick up a Canadian-made product.”
Even with delayed tariffs giving people a sense of relief, he said there is still a threat out there that may come back.
The store printed 500 Canadian flag stickers on Monday, said Sauer, but ran out and had to buy more card stock to print some more, leaving them hard at it still.
“It pretty much occupied our day yesterday, coming up with ideas, talking to the staff about different ways to promote Canadian products, which our customers all appreciate,” said Sauer.
The store’s Canadian flags are also made in Canada, he added. They put them all on sale for half price till the end of the month and if they run out, he said he will “happily order a lot more.”
Roy Thunder, a Home Hardware customer, said he supports more Canadian products because he is a Canadian first.
He stands by when his people say: "Let’s share the land, let’s not fight each other."
“The concept that I believe in from the ancestral point of view is that we share the wealth together and coexist with each other, not to fight each other but to move forward in a good way,” said Thunder.
“But I think the president has different plans and agenda. That’s his business, but we need to support our Canada-made products, including foods, lumber, which I am here for to buy some lumber and to be able to support Canada 100 per cent.”
Thunder said the tariffs will have a detrimental effect on the markets, produce, homeowners and anything people purchase in their daily lives: “It’s going to affect people greatly.”
“The tariffs itself, I’m totally against that. I feel that it’s unfair and for the new president to dictate the tariffs against our nation and I think it’s attacking our nation. We’ve been good to the Americans and being a good neighbour, we should be able to help each other,” said Thunder.
He said the cost of living is going to shoot up and that’s one of the things that he is worried about.
However, not all customers are concerned by the tariff threat.
“It a may seem like a lot, but overall, I think we’re two countries that are neighbours and we’re friends and always have been and hope to keep it that way,” said one man.
He said the US has been paying a lot of money in tariffs over the years to other countries as well as Canada and they should be replacing goods, services and so on after taking the US for granted.
Speaking to Newswatch about the tariffs on Monday, Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce president Charla Robinson said Canadians need to pull together to do what they can to support Canadian businesses and Canadian jobs, as “we weather this storm.”
“It’s a bit of a work in progress but certainly encouraging everyone to be looking at the labels and seeing if there are ways that they can replace products that are US-made with Canadian products or other products,” said Robinson.
“But we do understand that there are some things that really we only can get from the US and so recognizing that those prices are probably going to go up because of retaliatory tariffs as well.”
