Small businesses reveling in buy Canadian even as tariff threat stokes anxiety

An grocery store employee restocks Canadian-made dairy products in Montreal on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)

TORONTO — U.S. threats to impose tariffs on Canadian goods have been a blessing and a curse for Julie Brown.

The co-founder of Toronto-based apparel brand Province of Canada saw sales in the typically sluggish month of February double so quickly that she’s now considering hiring more staff and ramping up product development to meet demand from customers increasingly shopping local.

At the same time, the company is bracing for challenges south of the border, where it gets some of the cotton it uses to knit, dye and transform into T-shirts, sweats and other garments sold to local customers and ex-pats abroad.

“This is usually our slowest time of year, coming off the holiday season, when we have a couple of months to regroup,” Brown said. “This year, I’m not complaining, but we haven’t really had that reprieve.”

The dichotomy playing out at her company is being mirrored across the country as local businesses revel in the upside of the buy Canadian movement but scramble to prepare for the troubles that may soon lie ahead.

Though U.S. President Donald Trump paused implementing the 25 per cent tariffs he promised to levy on Canadian goods, business owners aren’t treating the reprieve until Tuesday as a sure thing and are worried upcoming duties on steel and aluminum and others floated on copper, semiconductors and auto components could still come to fruition.

To cope with the possibilities, they’re looking to turn the wave of Canadian shoppers patronizing their businesses into customers for life.

But while they work to take advantage of the patriotic sentiment, they’re exploring alternate suppliers, mulling new pricing strategies and considering dramatic changes to their supply chains.

The tariffs have caused Toronto-based mattress and bedding brand Silk & Snow to pre-stock its U.S. warehouse with a few months of inventory because up to 40 per cent of its monthly business comes from south of the border.

“Right now, we’re just ramping up production and increasing our distribution so we’re able to navigate any uncertainty or changes that could play out,” said the company’s CEO Albert Chow.

He considers Silk & Snow fortunate because its mattresses are made in Canada with components like steel coils sourced domestically. The company’s bedding comes from Portugal and its furniture from Vietnam.

Though the company “doesn’t really shout it from the rooftops,” customers appear to be noticing it’s Canadian. The realization is showing up in Silk & Snow’s financials, which were on track to beat its February revenue forecasts as the month wound to a close.

Shopify, the Ottawa-based e-commerce giant whose software powers millions of online stores run by small and large businesses, said sales of memory foam mattresses stocked by Canadian merchants surged 213 per cent between January and February.

The lengthy list of goods sold by Shopify’s Canadian merchants that also saw a spike over the same time period included row boats, ribbons, dish detergents and soaps, as well as T-shirts, pajamas and armchairs.

When the tariff talk began, Alex Argiropoulos said customers of Sap Sucker, a brand of sparkling water sweetened with organic maple syrup, reached out to uncover how Canadian the Flesherton, Ont., company’s products are.

Not only do the sap, water and flavourings come from Canada, but so do the brand’s aluminum cans. In fact, its supply chain is so insulated from the U.S. that the only way senior development business manager Argiropoulos imagines it could be impacted by tariffs is if Sap Sucker’s suppliers pass along broad price increases from other clients more exposed to the U.S.

That answer has satisfied Sap Sucker’s food conglomerate customers, but because of their long lead times, it hasn’t led to a boom in orders yet.

However, the number of inquiries has Sap Sucker confident it will soon be busier.

Hamilton, Ont.-based popcorn company Comeback Snacks is in a similar situation.

Its sales have risen at the store level, where founder Emily O’Brien has spied retailers like Indigo labelling products as Canadian, but it likely won’t translate to increased orders from distributors for another month.

While Comeback Snacks is confident it can handle a spike, O’Brien’s business partner Ryan Hall worries about what tariffs could mean for the company’s supply chain.

The company’s popcorn is made by a manufacturer in Canada with ingredients mostly from the country. Its packaging comes from a Canadian supplier sometimes using U.S. plastic.

“I reached out to them and they’ve offered no firm commitments on freezing pricing,” Hall said. “It’s like wait and see.”

The company’s U.S. ambitions are in a similar limbo.

Comeback Snacks sells popcorn at ballparks and arenas across the border. It’s been exploring contracting a Minnesota manufacturer to make products for the U.S. market but isn’t sure how easy it will be to proceed if tariffs happen.

Making any changes to a supply chain can be tedious, said Province of Canada’s Brown.

If the clothing brand decides to switch out the U.S. cotton it uses, it will take time to find a new supplier offering the material at the same high quality because Canada’s climate means cotton isn’t grown here.

Even once an alternative is sourced, the company must determine what kind of fabric can be produced from it and test how it performs when made into apparel.

There’s also a possibility that any new cotton would be more expensive, adding to climbing labour costs. Given the already high prices Province of Canada charges, Brown is loathe to pass along rising expenses to customers, but said, “I don’t want to get priced out and then we can no longer do this.”

Rather than make dramatic moves to prepare for tariffs that may not happen, Brown is celebrating her growing customer base and leaning into the Canadian unity Trump has provoked.

She released a new line recently that is a departure from her company’s usual basics, which tend to carry classic designs and are never “dripping in Canadiana” like maple leaves.

The line’s highlight is a sweater sporting bold red lettering spelling out “Canada.” Other items bear the names of major Canadian cities or neighbourhoods.

Province of Canada’s website shows at least one of the garments has sold out -- an achievement for Brown who has long awaited the day the country would embrace shopping local.

“It’s been a long journey to get here,” she said. “So it feels great to be seen by the country right now.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 2, 2025.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press