This is The Week in Polling, your Saturday dose of interesting numbers from top pollsters in Canada and around the world, curated by The Hub. Here’s what we’re looking at this week.
More than 40 percent of Canadians will do everything they can to avoid buying American products
Source: Abacus Data
Recent polling from Abacus Data suggests a significant shift in Canadian consumer behaviour in response to rising trade tensions with the United States after President Donald Trump threatened Canada with 25 percent blanket tariffs and has continued to mention his plans to make the country the “51st state.”
Canada’s counter-tariff plan, if enacted, would target $155 billion worth of American-made products, including fruit, vegetables, meat, and poultry. According to Sylvain Charlebois, the senior director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Canada’s counter-tariffs would affect Canadians the most, especially regarding the prices of goods on store shelves.
“Tariffs usually mean one thing—higher prices,” Charlebois told the National Post, “It’s a chain reaction—higher costs for farmers and suppliers almost always trickle down to consumers.”
Marco Bijvank, a professor at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business, estimated that a mere 10 percent of products on the shelves of an average Canadian store are truly “Products of Canada,” meaning they were almost completely made in this country and with Canadian ingredients. The other products, which make up the bulk of items in Canadian grocery stores—even those labelled “Made in Canada”—are a combination of U.S. or international imports.
Despite a potential hike in the costs of Canadian goods and the scarcity of “Products of Canada,” 42 percent of Canadians have expressed intent to avoid purchasing U.S.-made products by any means necessary. The poll also found that 84 percent of Americans plan to increase their consumption of Canadian-made products.
