Choosing between two boxes on a grocery shelf has become about more than price, taste or habit for many Canadians. Nineteen months after Canada’s trade relationship with the United States entered a far more confrontational period, a striking 77% of Canadians still say they intend to avoid American products completely or buy as few as possible.
There is a complication, however. At the same time, 61% believe products made in Canada usually cost more than comparable American goods. That leaves households balancing two powerful pressures: a desire to support domestic businesses and an equally real need to protect strained household budgets. The latest numbers suggest the Buy Canadian movement has become unusually durable—but its next test may be whether Canadian products can win on price and convenience as well as patriotism.
The Boycott Has Outlasted the Initial Shock
Consumer protests often burn brightly and then fade as attention moves elsewhere. The Canadian response to U.S. trade tensions has so far been different. When Abacus Data questioned 3,000 Canadian adults in February 2025, 41% said they would do everything possible to avoid products made in the United States or sold by American companies. Another 37% said they would try to buy as few American goods as possible. Together, that put avoidance sentiment at 78%. When researchers returned to the same questions in September 2026, the combined figure was still 77%.
There has been some movement underneath that headline number. The most committed group declined from 41% to 37%, while the share taking the somewhat softer position of buying as few American products as possible increased from 37% to 40%. Only 14% said the trade dispute would not substantially change their purchasing, compared with 12% at the beginning. Rather than disappearing, the boycott appears to have settled into a less emotional but remarkably persistent consumer habit.
More Canadians Are Turning Their Intentions Into Actual Purchases
What makes the latest numbers particularly important is that reported behaviour has moved more dramatically than stated intentions. In February 2025, 53% of Canadians surveyed said they had already purchased more Canadian products. By September 2026, that figure had climbed to 61%. The percentage saying they had actively tried to avoid American products rose even faster, from 38% to 51%. Those figures suggest that consumers who initially said they were merely considering a change have increasingly begun following through.
The behaviour stretches beyond supermarket shelves. Among respondents for whom U.S. travel was relevant, the share saying they had cancelled an American trip climbed from 32% to 52%. Avoidance of American gas stations increased from 33% to 39%, while avoidance of U.S.-identified retailers such as Walmart rose from 20% to 26%. The share reducing Amazon purchases moved from 21% to 26%, and cancellations of American streaming services increased from 14% to 20%. Individually, some of these changes appear modest. Collectively, however, they show how a political dispute can gradually become embedded in ordinary household decisions.
The Biggest Obstacle May Be the Household Budget
Canadian origin may win a product a second look, but it does not erase the cost of living. In February 2025, 60% of Canadians told Abacus Data that products made in Canada probably or definitely cost more than comparable American products. By September 2026, the figure was 61%. Separate Abacus research during the summer found the limits of consumers’ willingness to absorb that perceived premium. When the Canadian alternative costs noticeably more, just 19% said they would still consistently choose it. Another 43% said they would make the decision category by category, while 34% would simply buy the cheaper option.
That price sensitivity exists for good reason. The cost of living remained Canadians’ most frequently cited national concern in September, and Statistics Canada reported that consumer prices were 3.0% higher year over year in August 2026. Grocery inflation had eased to 2.8%, but food purchased from stores was still approximately 29% more expensive than five years earlier. Importantly, those statistics do not prove that Canadian products universally cost more than U.S. products. Prices vary enormously by category, brand and retailer. The 61% figure measures consumer perception—but perceptions can influence shopping decisions almost as powerfully as actual price tags.
Shoppers Still Struggle to Determine What Is Actually Canadian
Trying to “buy Canadian” becomes surprisingly complicated once shoppers start reading the fine print. In the latest Abacus research, only 48% of respondents believed most packaged foods sold in Canadian grocery stores were made in Canada, up from 43% in early 2025. Brand identity was similarly confusing. Roughly three-quarters identified Molson as Canadian, fewer than half identified Boston Pizza that way, while three-quarters correctly associated Costco with the United States. Nestlé, a Swiss company, produced a particularly divided set of answers. After more than a year of intense attention to product origin, consumers remained uncertain about where many familiar names belong.
Part of the difficulty is that corporate ownership, manufacturing location and ingredient origin are different things. Canadian labelling rules reflect that complexity. For non-food products, the Competition Bureau generally treats “Product of Canada” as requiring at least 98% of direct production costs to be incurred here, while “Made in Canada” generally requires at least 51% plus a qualifying statement about imported content. Food has related CFIA rules centred on ingredients, processing and labour. A maple leaf alone therefore cannot answer every origin question. That helps explain why 89% of respondents want retailers to identify Canadian-made products more clearly.
Grocery Aisles Became an Early Battleground
Food shopping provides one of the clearest examples of how quickly the Buy Canadian mood entered everyday life. A KPMG survey conducted in February 2025 found that 84% of Canadian respondents were paying closer attention to product origin by reading labels. Eighty per cent said they were intentionally looking for a non-U.S. alternative when an equivalent Canadian product was unavailable. At the height of the early reaction, 77% even said they were prepared to pay more for Canadian products, although the survey also found a quarter could not afford any price increase at all.
Other retail data pointed in the same direction. Dunnhumby reported in May 2025 that 71% of surveyed Canadian grocery shoppers intended to purchase fewer U.S. grocery products that year. The company also found that U.S. mass and chain retailers in Canada experienced a three-percentage-point decline in household penetration compared with its previous survey wave, representing approximately 500,000 households, while Canadian national discount and mass chains gained three points. Nearly a quarter of respondents already reducing U.S. purchases said they expected the change to become permanent. The later Abacus results suggest that much of the broader sentiment did, in fact, survive.
Canada and the United States Are Too Economically Connected for a Clean Break
Avoiding one imported tomato or changing a brand of cereal is relatively straightforward. Untangling an integrated continental supply chain is not. Statistics Canada reported that 58.8% of Canadian merchandise imports still came from the United States in 2025, although that was down from 62.3% a year earlier. On the export side, 71.7% of Canadian merchandise exports went to the United States, down from 75.9%. Trade has diversified, but the American market remains deeply embedded in Canadian production and consumption.
That interconnection continued in 2026. In July alone, Canada imported about $44.6 billion in merchandise from the United States and exported roughly $50.5 billion there. At the same time, exports to countries other than the United States reached a record $25.6 billion that month. The result is a consumer landscape where national origin is rarely as simple as a flag on the package. A product manufactured in the United States may contain Canadian materials, while something finished in Canada may rely on imported components. Abacus found that 72% of Canadians recognize that many American-made food and household goods contain Canadian ingredients or parts. Economic integration makes a completely binary boycott difficult.
Buying Canadian Also Depends on How Easily Canada Trades With Itself
There is another side to the affordability problem that has little to do with the U.S. border. Canadian companies also face costs when moving goods between provinces and territories. Statistics Canada estimates that internal trade reached approximately $527 billion in 2024, equal to about 17% of national GDP, with roughly 1.6 million jobs directly connected to that commerce. Manufacturing represented the largest industry share of internal trade in the agency’s analysis. Yet businesses still reported transportation costs, different rules and administrative requirements as barriers to selling across provincial boundaries.
That matters for someone standing in a store looking for an affordable Canadian alternative. A producer in Quebec, Alberta or Nova Scotia cannot compete nationally merely because consumers want domestic products; goods still have to reach shelves at competitive prices. Ottawa’s Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act came into force in 2026 as part of a broader effort to reduce federal barriers, while governments have also pursued mutual recognition of goods. Consumer support for that direction has been strong: KPMG found in 2025 that 96% of respondents wanted interprovincial trade barriers removed. Making Canadian goods easier to sell across Canada could eventually matter as much to the Buy Canadian movement as persuading consumers to choose them.
Canadian Origin Can Open the Door, but Value Still Has to Close the Sale
The durability of the movement does not mean every Canadian approaches it with the same intensity. Among people aged 60 and older, the share taking the strongest possible position on avoiding U.S. products fell from 54% in February 2025 to 48% in September 2026. Among those aged 45 to 59, it declined from 39% to 33%, while the 30-to-44 group moved from 34% to 30%. Canadians under 30 were the exception, edging from 31% to 32%. The pattern suggests some softening in absolute boycott sentiment without a collapse in the broader desire to reduce American purchases.
For Canadian manufacturers and retailers, that distinction may be crucial. National pride can encourage a shopper to pick up an unfamiliar product, but it cannot guarantee the purchase if the price difference is uncomfortable, the domestic option is difficult to locate or its origin is unclear. Canadians still overwhelmingly want clearer Canadian identification on store shelves, and 87% in the latest Abacus study wanted retailers to provide more alternatives from Canadian or non-U.S. suppliers. The political motivation behind the movement has proved remarkably resilient. Its economic future, however, will probably depend on something far more familiar: whether Canadian businesses can turn goodwill into products consumers can easily identify, find and afford.
