Part of an ongoing series that looks at changes one year after the global trade wars ignited.
Last summer, I received an email from a guy at National Public Relations, a unit of Montreal-based Avenir Global, the global communications firm.
National describes itself in the plural as “Canada’s storytellers,” perhaps because its stable of journalists has grown in recent years as newsrooms have shrunk. The story on offer was a good one, designed to appeal to a Canadian journalist’s sense of patriotism at a time of war.
“Today Maison Orphée unveils its new line of mustards made entirely in Canada from Canadian mustard seeds,” said the press release, dated Aug. 20, 2018. “With the recent imposition of customs duties on imported condiments, the company sees an opportunity to compete with the world’s agri-food giants by bringing affordable, high-quality condiments to market across the country.”
Maison Orphée had been making cold-pressed cooking oils from Quebec City since the 1980s and was in the process of expanding both its product line and its distributional reach.
Donald Trump was a non-factor in the company’s business plan — a U.S. president who was consistently giving the boots to the Canadian economy was irresistible from a marketing perspective. Hashtags such as #BuyCanadian and #BoycottUSA were popping up on social media. Unifor, the big private industry union, launched an “I shop Canada” campaign. Even American news outlets such as the New York Post and CBS noticed the trend, both flagging Twitter user Scott Chamberlain’s post about his “first Trump-free grocery cart,” which was liked 1,200 times and retweeted by more than 300 people.
Maison Orphée mustard
Maison Orphée and its advisers at National created a chart that treated mustard the way the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission treats music when it decides whether it counts as Canadian content.
French’s: Canadian mustard seeds, processed in the United States by an American owner. Heinz: American across the board. Grey Poupon: French seeds ground into mustard in France, and American owned. Maille: a French company that sources a mix of French and Canadian mustard seeds and processes them in France. President’s Choice is a Canadian company that sources its mustard in Canada, but the base ingredient was American.
Maison Orphée: Canada, Canada, Canada.
“It was a great time to take this angle,” Élisabeth Bélanger, who owns the company with her sister, Élaine, told me in a telephone interview on July 26. “I’m not sure most Canadians even realized that mustard was a Canadian crop. It was a great opportunity to shine a light on it.”
I’m as open to a tug of the patriotic heartstrings as anyone; back in the day, I purchased the music of bands such as Brighton Rock (Niagara Falls!) and Haywire (Charlottetown!) mostly because Video Hits told me they were homegrown.
But I’ve been skeptical of this newish trend of wrapping food in the Maple Leaf since Tim Hortons started boasting in 2017 that its lattes were made with 100 per cent Canadian milk, as if the chain’s notoriously cost-conscious owner, Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital, would pay the triple-digit duties that protect the supply management system to import dairy from somewhere else.
Maison Orphée’s publicity noted the retaliatory tariffs on “condiments,” but neglected to mention that the federal government at the last minute dropped mustard from its retaliatory list because Canadian growers of mustard seeds were worried the measure would hurt the price of their crop. In that regard, the Trudeau government, and all of its political opponents who pledged to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with the prime minister against Trump, are no different than Tim Hortons. They embraced the optics of fighting back against a bully because the masses appeared to like it, but they knew that the war strategy was carefully designed to ensure no one would be seriously hurt.
“Does it work?” Jeff Swystun, an advertising consultant and the author of “Why Marketing Matters,” said when I got in touch to discuss whether calls to national pride actually work. “My answer is a weak, “It depends.” Just like President Trump relies on an active base of supporters, so too would a brand who plays the patriotic card. You are bound to alienate a significant segment regardless.”
There isn’t a lot of evidence-based analysis yet on the degree to which the trade wars have altered the movement of goods, services and people.
Ambassador Bridge on the Canada-U.S. border in Windsor, Ont. The number of residents returning U.S. visits in May 2018 surged by almost 18 per cent from a year earlier, and then plunged as the trade dispute intensified.
Canadians appear to have grown less enthusiastic about visiting Trump’s America. The number of residents returning U.S. visits in May 2018 surged by almost 18 per cent from a year earlier, and then plunged as the trade dispute intensified. The monthly year-over-year growth rate turned negative in August, and hadn’t resumed growing through May, according to Statistics Canada’s most recent tally.
StatCan plans to publish a report on the tit-for-tat duties between Canada and the U.S. in early August. Imports of U.S. steel, aluminum, and “other tariffed” items jumped on the eve of the duties, and then declined when those products become more expensive at the border, according to seasonally adjusted data provided by the agency. The average value of imports of American ketchup in June, July and August 2015 was about $8.8 million, according to raw data that StatCan shared but hadn’t yet adjusted for seasonal effects. In 2016, that number was $8.3 million; in 2017, $7 million; and in 2018, when tariffs were applied, $6 million.
It’s fine for companies to pursue marketing strategies tied to patriotism and national pride. Bélanger told me that sales are up by about 20 per cent and her staff is now at 50, compared with 37 a year ago. “We’ve had to push up the pace here,” she said.
But I worry that if patriotism works for marketers, then it will work for lobbyists too. On July 26, the Trudeau government “invested” $20 million in the Canadian unit of Brazilian steelmaker Gerdau SA, and $16 million in the Canadian operations of Luxembourg-based Tenaris SA, which specializes in steel pipes. These were only the latest in a series of favours the federal government has done for the steel industry since metal fabrication became a flashpoint of the trade wars. The money comes from the Strategic Innovation Fund. You can decide for yourself if that cash pile is best used on homegrown tech companies that want to scale, or the branch plants of global steel giants.
“We are committed to supporting Canadian steel workers and the innovative, world-class products they produce,” Jennifer O’Connell, the parliamentary secretary of the minister of finance, said in the statement announcing the money for Gerdau’s Whitby, Ont.-base plant. “Our investment in Gerdau will help strengthen the competitiveness of the steel sector for years to come, maintain Canada’s position in the global market and support jobs for middle-class Canadians here in Durham region.”
Go Canada!
• Email: kcarmichael@nationalpost.com | Twitter: carmichaelkevin
