As long as there is after purchase-servicing (ie. defective returns, warranty) and the cost is comparably reasonable, I would be fine with Made in China / Made in Mexico / Made on this Earth. I wouldn't be too keen to pay a premium for a product (other than food) labeled as "Made in Canada", only to discover all the parts were made elsewhere other than Canada. On the other hand, food must be strictly Canadian produce, locally or nationally on my list.
I don't shop for Canadian products, but if possible I buy non asian products, IMO in many instances there is a difference in quality even though the manufacturers may claim the standards are the same.
Actually some of the best-quality clothing in the world is made in Asia -- it's hard to beat the quality and skill level of textile workers there. Everyone assumes that the only reason clothing manufacturers get stuff made in China is the low labour rates, but some designers have things made there because they can't get them made as well anywhere else. Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia has given some lectures on this topic -- he actually tried making clothes in North America and Europe first, but nobody could meet his quality standards until he started working with factories in Asia.
My older basic & major appliances, all lasted 10+ years; the newer ones, however, such as: DVD player/fridge/kettle/TV, have all given problems between 3rd & 5th years [made in Japan {or Malasya}, S.Korea/Mexico, Germany].
It seems that things are not made to last anymore, no matter where they are engineered/assembled.
M.gal: been to Walmart once & so hated it!
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
I agree it doesn't matter where it is made, I can name a great product from each of the Asian countries including China. Like I said they will produce whatever you pay them/ask them to build for you... The reason a lot of cheap stuff is made in China is twofold; higher sales margins and the sooner a replacement needs to be purchased. You can still find good quality products though, and the price is really not that bad thanks to the internet cutting out the middle men or other unique ways. Maybe instead of "Made in Canada, x country" we need a "Made to Last" mark/certification. These products usually thrive on the specific forum communities for sales nowaday, and even listen to a lot of forum feedback for improvements. The made in Germany stuff is pretty impressive value though for mainstream stores. I know of a few Canadian brands I wouldn't trade for anything else as well.
There is truth to that, producers need items to breakdown so they can sell more, poeple want low prices so the cost of producing needs to go down, hence the quality goes down as well, but that means they can sell more often so at the end it's not cheaper for consumers over the long run.Originally Posted by Toronto.gal
On top of that in the past we needed a pot to boil everything, now we need rice cooker, deep fryyer, egg poacher, veggie steamer, slow cooker........... We must be really regressing in our intelligence ;-)
lol
I walked around the store in awe, all "so THIS is Walmart!"
The problem with buying local products for most people is that the cost is usually significantly higher for local products than those mass produced in other areas (duh) and for low income families this savings could mean the difference between managing to get by and going without.
While I was a student I loved being able to buy cheaply made foreign products to furnish my apartment, etc because otherwise it would have been impossible without racking up a major amount of debt. However now that I am out on my own with no debt, I would love to support Canadian products. The most recent personal experience I have with buying cheaply/poorly made foreign products is a couch I purchased from The Brick. I paid roughly $1400 for it and I am currently returning it for exchange due to defect for the THIRD time. I've also noticed the general poor quality materials used (about half pressboard) and shoddy worksmanship (apolstery staples too far apart). The couch is large and appears to be very stylish, however I realize the reason it had a $1400 pricetag when similar couches had a $2500 price is because of the giant 'Made in Malaysia' stamp on the box. For the burden it has been, I wish I went and bought the Canadian or USA made couch for $2500.
The death of the manufacturing sector is probably the biggest preventable mistake western nations have let slip by. The manufacturing sector is what propelled most nations into superpowers in the past and is currently throwing previously impoverished nations into growing powers. Helping these nations grow is not the problem, but slipping behind is. You cannot build an economy based entirely on the natural resource primary industries and service industries alone. Over the past 30 years we seem to have traded places with China, where they formerly traded natural resources with us for our manufactuered / high-technology goods, we are now in the complete opposite arrangement.
To make up an example, say we sell $1 worth of wood to China. They then sell us back a $4 doo-dad. A retail store here sells that doo-dad for $5. $2 of that products value was gained in Canada, wheras $3 worth of it was manufacturered in China. Wouldn't you rather see that $3 benefit the national economy, then spent by us to buy the same piece of wood we originally sold back? Or potentially just see a better quality product in return? Formerly, I would have loved to see the $100 savings on a bookshelf made in Taiwan over the Canadain made equivilent but now with a bigger perspective on things I would rather see my neighbours gainfully employed and get a product that will actually last. Unemployment numbers are expected to rise to just below 8% and that is a bigger burden on us and the economy as a whole than we think.
Local food is a bit different, large scale farming optimizes land use (ie. productivity per square foot of land farmed) and makes sense from an environmental stance. However in terms of food security its really created an issue. High-risk areas, including the very urban and the very rural are at the end of a very long chain of supply system that has waaay too many points of failure to count. Any disruption in communication, power, transportation, labour, etc which causes a delay in the system can accordian and create a much larger problem. In a food security article that I had previously read it stated that Newfoundland really only has about 3 days worth of fresh food on hand if the supply were to be cut off. Now I believe the article didn't include canned/preserved foods however being completely exhausted of fresh food within 3 days of a disaster (Hurricane Igor for example, a potential trucker / ferry service strike for another) is a scarey thought.
Buying locally produced food keeps local farmers / producers in business and gives them potential to grow. Personally I would rather be able to walk down the street and buy a head of lettuce for $3 and ensure it is there whenever I need it then to spend $2 a head each time and then have to spend a month without it at all due to a labour strike in another region.
There are a couple websites I found after googling 'made in canada', most of which I found are out of date or poor attempts at a business by reselling products. I think we need a consumer-driven non profit group to provide labelling / identification of products that are manufactured here.
(Maybe there is one I currently am unaware of?)
I'm a bit tried and this is my first post on CMF so maybe I'm ranting. I'll shut up now.
Nice first post there. I also agree there's no reason for our manufacturing sector to deteriorate so much, there are still many creative ways to compete besides using cheap labour (such as cutting out all the greedy middle men, improving efficiency, making legitimately good products instead of marketing ploys etc) Competition is supposed to win here, but our best innovation in NA is new ways to fool the consumer. Of course it gets complicated because if we all start buying products direct a lot of service jobs disappear instead
I'm all for local farming having grown up on them, and having fresh food available is strategic as protecting our natural resources imo (heck we apparently have "strategic reserves" of maple syrup..) It does get complicated though. For example, why does NA food always have soo much of that g*d awful fructose corn syrup in it for sweetener, instead of much more natural tasting sugarcane from SA? As far as I know it's just because the US encourages local corn crops and tariffs the SA sugar. Many other countries don't use so much of this corn syrup at all, and I'm not sure it's any healthier
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