Buy Quality, Buy Canadian!

When I opened my local Port Perry Star newspaper this morning, I was delighted to read a letter to the editor from Colin Scriver from Newcastle.

The subject matter of Colin’s letter has been rattling around in my head for a while. It allows me to reflect on three inter-related themes that I think are incredibly important for all Canadian consumers — buying quality, shopping Canadian, and “walking the talk”.

Read on…

“I am a manufacturer and I too get frustrated with all the foreign imports, but I drive a Toyota. The reason you ask? Quality.

I have owned a lot of GM products (three trucks, five cars) and two Chrysler products from different dealers, and it is the same old story.

Extremely poor quality and no one to back it up. I got sick of it. I have never been mistreated and dismissed so much in my life than at a GM dealer.

I don’t get that at Toyota. Oh, and my 2008 Honda Civic has more Canadian content than most GM vehicles, alongside my made in Canada Toyota Matrix.

Both vehicles are made in Canada and both are serviced in Canada and made by taxpaying Ontarians.

But here is to all the GM employees who insist our economy is crashing strictly due to the fact that I bought a Toyota — wake up.

The majority of your daily purchases are probably products made in China. So, if you can come up with a way of eliminating that, your cars will definitely improve.”

As owner of P’lovers in Port Perry and principle product buyer, it is incredibly important to me to carry high quality products for our customers. As a consumer myself, I recognize that buying quality may come with a higher initial price tag, but it will inevitably be cheaper in the long run. It just makes sense that if I am replacing a product less often, fewer overall resources will be used in the process, resulting in a smaller ecological footprint. This truly is a winning scenario for everyone.

Buying Canadian is another important P’lovers purchasing principle and a goal that I share as a consumer. Minimizing the distance a product travels to get to my store (or my home) makes an obvious positive impact on our environment.

There is, however, an important economic benefit as well.

According to research conducted by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, it is small and medium sized business that drives the Canadian economy — not the big chains or the multinationals.

Three to four times more of the money you spend is re-invested back into your community when you choose to shop at local independent stores versus the (cheaper, lower quality) big box alternative.  As Colin suggests in his letter, supporting the big box stores only exacerbates the problem.

When you choose to shop at P’lovers, you do so knowing we, in turn, have made a conscious commitment to support, whenever possible, small Canadian craftspeople and micro-businesses — Pheylonian, Nature’s Bodyworks, Ella’s Botanicals, Ringley, Zee Spot, Frank Glew, Arbour, A Slice of the North, Dog Bite Steel, Dream Designs, Snug Sleep, Green Beaver, to name just a few.

These products may come with a higher price tag, but will also be better quality than anything else you will find in the market. We choose this purchasing strategy knowing our support helps our fellow small Canadian businesses re-invest in their communities and succeed in the face of incredible competition.

In short, it is an good example of “walking the talk” and is simply the right thing to do.

-Steve