'Made in Canada' vs. 'Product of Canada' — What's the difference?
How to make sense of product labels amid the push to buy domestic goods
So what does it all mean?
Under the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act, a "Product of Canada" label means at least 98 per cent of the total direct costs of producing the item were incurred in Canada. Essentially, it was made in Canada by Canadians, with negligible imported elements.
If a product is 100 per cent Canadian, the label can say exactly that.
"Made in Canada," meanwhile, means it was more than half of the total direct costs — at least 51 per cent but less than 98.
The Competition Bureau encourages qualifying statements for that label, such as "Made in Canada with imported parts," or "Made in Canada with 60 per cent Canadian content and 40 per cent imported content."
For both labels, the product has to have undergone its "last substantial transformation" in Canada — for example, turning dough, sauce and cheese into pizza.
Foreign companies, local factories
"It's not always easy to buy Canadian," Michael Von Massow, a professor of food, agricultural, and resource economics at the University of Guelph,
told CBC's The Current.
Even products that meet the threshold for Canadian labelling are often made by international companies that have factories here, he says.
Lay's potato chips, for instance, are ultimately owned by PepsiCo. The bags say "Made in Canada."
They're made "with Canadian labour, with Canadian potatoes," in Cambridge, Ont., Von Massow said.
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‘Made in Canada’ and ‘Product of Canada’: What’s the difference?