My guide to buying more Canadian / less American

In Person Groceries ➡️ Go basically anywhere but Walmart. Look for “Product of Canada” on packaging. “Made in Canada” is 2nd best. If the company is Canadian that is the 3rd best. For produce with no packaging ask someone at the store or use one of the buy Canadian apps.

Instacart (ordering groceries) ➡️ Voila (and use the shop local option in the app when possible) or https://montreal.lufa.com/en/marketplace/category/your-local-marketplace/specials

Amazon ➡️ Home Hardware, Canadian Tire, Princess Auto, KMS Tools, BMR, and Lee Valley for in person shopping. If you’re going to order online use the Canadian Tire App.

Google Drive ➡️ Sync. If anyone uses someone’s referral code they both get 1 extra GB so here’s mine. https://www.sync.com/?_sync_refer=181a30ae0

Netflix ➡️ Crave and CBC Gem

Disney Plus and Prime ➡️ Ahoy Matey, Sail the Seas

Uber Eats ➡️ Skip the Dishes

Burger King / Mcdonalds ➡️ A&W, Law & Order, Harvey’s, or any local restraunt / https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_restaurant_chains

Starbucks / Mcdonalds Coffee ➡️ A local cafe or second Cup. Tim Hortons is half owned by an American company.

Subway ➡️ Mr Sub

Play Books (ebooks/ audio books app) ➡️ Kobo

Amazon ➡️ https://www.singingpebblebooks.ca/ for physical books

Dairy Queen ➡️ Chapmans from grocery store

Microsoft Office > https://www.libreoffice.org/ or you can host an Etherpad server https://etherpad.org/about

Pet Smart ➡️ Pet Valu or Ren’s Pets

Default Android Apps by Google (messages/phone/contacts/notes/file explorer/gallery/etc…) ➡️ Various Fossify Apps (not Canadian but is open source and has no tracking)

Google Maps ➡️ HERE WeGo

Spotify ➡️ Qobuz

Google Search ➡️ Qwant

Tap with your Visa ➡️ Tap with your interact debit card

  • imvii@lemmy.caEnglish
    3·
    14 hours ago

    To add to your Amazon entry, vevor.ca sells a ton of their stuff on amazon but you can buy it direct from their website for the same price or less with shipping included. Most of their products are mid-level China made things like Princess Auto.

    Everything is made in China these days. It’s kind of unavoidable. But the quality isn’t that bad.

    I just bought a basic spot welder for my company from there and it’s pretty damn good for the price.

    Vevor and Princess Auto have replaced Amazon for 90% of my needs.

  • collapse_already@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    19 hours ago

    Stay strong, Canada. If you can’t buy Canadian at least buy European or Asian. Other than food and defense products, us tanks barely make anything any more (lots of services and corporate bureaucracies though).

  • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
    12·
    2 days ago

    For buying web domains, I use EasyDNS, which is fully Canadian and has been around forever.

    For garden tools and yard work stuff: Gardena, Husqvarna, and Fiskar are all European.

    For power tools: Bosch is European and majority owned by a charity.

    For hardware stores, Home Hardware, Rona, Canadian Tire, Atlas Tools, Lee Valley, Princess Auto, are all Canadian.

    PrimeCables.ca and Shopperplus.ca can replace a lot of the random cables, electronics, and accessories that I might go to Amazon for.

    For hair care, Mark Anthony products are made in Canada, and owned by a European company.

    • Reannlegge@lemmy.ca
      4·
      1 day ago

      I was using hosthero for my domain as they are also 100% Canadian. I create new email addresses for every thing, not only for unlimited free trials but so if I get an email address leaked I just turn it off. EasyDNS is so much better with their wildcard email.

      I self host my own password manager (vaultwarden), I self host my own pictures (immich), I self my own search engine (searXNG), and there are many other things.

      I am trying to get away from Apple as much as I can, I have moved to HA for most of my home automation. I have a bunch of raspberry pi’s that do stuff, I have a 2014 Mac mini that was just sitting on my desk because it could no longer get updates that I installed Debian on and now works as a media server.

      I got a firewall I could install openWRT on so that I could VPN into so that I could use my pihole setup and other services away from home. I do not want to be the product I want to use services with out being sold as much as I can.

        • Typotyper@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          12 hours ago

          So I’ve been reading up on Rona since this morning. Its still listed as an asset with Sycamore partners, a private equity firm out if New York. 14 billion in assets.

          They own the Rona company headquartered in Quebec. There is no listing for a publicly traded Rona stock.

          http://sycamorepartners.com/investments

          • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
            2·
            10 hours ago

            Rona is a US company. But, I have no idea how they are still open because I never see anyone inside their old Lowes big boxes.

            However, many RONA outlets are locally owned franchises, like Home Hardware.

        • Typotyper@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          8 hours ago

          I didn’t know this. I just hope its not a front for a US company

          Edit. Sycamore, a private US investment firm owns Rona.

            • Typotyper@sh.itjust.works
              1·
              8 hours ago

              There were several sites listing similar information.

              I also looked up sycamore and added a link to their webpage

          • tehBishop@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            15 hours ago

            I don’t remember but my local Rona, last I checked, still had huge banners that says “TOOLS MADE IN AMERICA” all over.

              • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
                1·
                14 hours ago

                It is not the same house brands.

                It was when they were owned by Lowe’s, and they carried Kobalt as their house tool brand, but after Lowe’s sold them, they fire saled all their Kobalt products. Most recently they’ve also phased out Valspar brand paint.

  • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    Amazon ➡️ Home Hardware, Canadian Tire, Princess Auto, KMS Tools, BMR, and Lee Valley for in person shopping

    all that stuff is Chinese anyway. Chinese Tire.

    Most supplies from Home Depot are sourced in Canada.

    • Corvid_Moon@lemmy.ca
      4·
      1 day ago

      Home Depot is an American company though (& a pretty pro-trump one at that).

      As an aside, I purchased a Canadian flag from Canadian Tire that was made in Canada by a Canadian company, so not all their products are sourced outside Canada.

        • Corvid_Moon@lemmy.ca
          1·
          10 hours ago

          I mean, just as with products at any grocery store, it’s all about looking closely at the labels and (in my case at least), cross-referencing through web searches and/or Canadian apps.

      • trebach@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        18 hours ago

        Avoid Lowes, Menard’s, Harbor Freight, Kobalt, Stanley, Black and Decker, Ridgid, and Husky as well because they’re all American.

        Husky is not to be confused with Husqvarna because the latter is Swedish. Milwaukee Tools is American but owned by a company in Hong Kong so decide that for yourself.

  • garden@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    6·
    2 days ago

    or use one of the buy Canadian apps

    Does anyone have a good rec for one that’s not vibecoded slop? A couple months ago I tried a ton of apps & sites, but the info they were giving was so bad & inconsistent & obviously LLM generated.

    BankruptTrump was the one that worked best for me (fewest errors… if you ignored checking the reference links) but when it was wrong it was wrong so I’ve pretty much given up.

    I just want something human-built that I can contribute to 🥲