UXBRIDGE, Ont. - An Ontario teenager has built a website MadeinCanada.ca, listing products made by Canadian-owned firms - including furniture, flooring, and consumer goods, a number of them made with wood components.Among 270 firms listed in the growing database are businesses large and small, including recent additions such as office furniture maker Natalex Manufacturing in Cambridge, Ontario, and Prairie Sticks Bats, a producer of ash, maple ad birch baseball bats, in Lacomb, Alberta. The site's founder Tyler Campbell, who lives in Uxbridge, Ontario, says he and two partners built the site in response to what he sees as "hostile" U.S. tariffs.
"As the tariffs on many American goods go into place, and a trade war heats up, Canadians are looking for products manufactured in Canada," says Campbell.
Made In Canada is compiling a list of those products in one place, so consumers can support Canadian jobs and Canadian workers, he says.
South Shore Furniture
"We know it can be hard to find Canadian-made products, and even harder to find Canadian-made products from a Canadian-owned company," he says. "So we’re making a list."
Among the larger firms listed are South Shore Furniture, privately-owned by the Laflamme family, which todays employ around 800 people across North America and manufactures much of their merchandise at two plants in Quebec Province, plus a third plant in Mexico, as well as MityBilt furniture in Stonewall, Manitoba.
MityBilt Manufacturing
According to the website, to distinguish between Canadian-owned businesses which Campbell feels are more “Canadian” than a foreign-owned business, "We are doing our best to keep it simple – our main focus is on highlighting Canadian-made products by Canadian-owned companies. We will also include Canadian-made products by non-Canadian owned companies."
Interest in the Made in Canada site has been high, with traffic earlier this month causing it to slow and even crash as awareness grew across the country.
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