The idea of buying local has been around for a long time and one that is easy to support. After all, who doesn’t want to help their neighbors by patronizing their goods or services.
And, now that we are facing the prospect of our government imposing tariffs on American imports, that notion has taken on much meaning as US-made products will become more expensive.
The more interesting question here is: just what is local?
Is it a product not made in America? Or, is it a product made by a Canadian headquartered firm? Or, how about a product made in Canada by an American company? That’s where it gets trickier.
Beer is a really good example. We think of Budweiser as an American beer but the company that owns Bud is Belgian. How about Molson? It is part of Molson Coors which is American but it brews in Canada so is it local or American? And Saskatchewan barley and malt play a big role in North American beer making so does that make a foreign product local?
