In the Face of Trump’s Tariff War, Sobeys Is Doing Its Part to Help Consumers Buy Canadian
A Brief Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper
Posted March 6th, 2025 on Niagara At Large
Some Niagara At Large readers may remember that it was just a few weeks ago that I wrote a commentary applauding a Sobeys grocery store outlet off Glendale Avenue in south St. Catharines for partnering with a group of animal assistance volunteers to raise some funding to support their efforts to find good homes for abandoned dogs.
As I said in that commentary and I will say it again here, I am not in the habit at all of giving free plugs to private businesses unless they are doing something exceptional for the common good of the community at large.
One of the posters you are now greeted with as you are entering a Sobeys store
That said, Sobeys – an all-Canadian grocery store chain founded in Nova Scotia more than a century ago – has done an exceptional job at all of its more than 1,500 stores across the country in joining the effort so many Canadians citizens are making to use the power of their pocketbooks to buy products made in Canada during this potentially destructive trade war Trump has launched against us.
If you are not sure what I mean, please go check it out for your self!
Before you even reach the inside of a Sobeys store, you are greeted by posters, one of them featuring a big red maple leaf and another picturing a Canadian farm with a barn with a maple leaf on it, that read in large letters: “So Canadian.”
Inside the store, as you walk the aisles, the shelves are bedecked with very visible stickers featuring Canadian flags below every product produced in our country – an effort, I was told by staff, that took a great deal of work that they said they didn’t mind doing at all if, even in some small way, it helps Canada win this unwarranted tariff war.
The Red Maple Leaf flag stickers that line the shelves under every Canadian product in Sobeys stores
I don’t pretend that I have visited every big chain grocery outlet in the region to see what they have done in this respect. I haven’t.
But I have checked out at least a few owned and operated by other brand-name corporate chains where, if there is a maple leaf sticker under a Canadian-produced product, you could barely see it, and I visited one American-owned chain store (you may be able to guess which one) where there are no stickers at all.
So good for Sobeys.
We need to see more of this for Canadians who are doing their best to fill their shopping bags with products produced in our own country, to show Trump that we are not going to take, sitting down, the continuous threats he is making to wreak havoc on our economy and to turn us into a “51st state” of the dumpster fire he is turning the United States in to.
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Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
P.S. – If you have found other retail chains that are making exceptional efforts to assist and even encourage us to buy Canadian, and I hope there are others, please share their name in the comment space below.
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