‘Buy Canadian’ trend paying off for B.C. business

As the “Buy Canadian” movement picks up steam, it appears at least one B.C.-based company is beginning to reap the benefits.

Cloverdale Paint, one of the only large Canadian-owned paint manufacturers, says it’s experiencing a surge in consumer interest.

“We are getting a lot of calls from painters and from DIY customers who are feeling patriotic, and thank goodness as Canadians we’re feeling patriotic because it doesn’t always come easily to us,” President Darrin Noble told 1130 NewsRadio.

Noble says the company is starting to see more and more consumers shift away from popular U.S.-owned brands like Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams, choosing instead to support homegrown products.

“As Canadians, we want to buy Canadian, and it’s a really important movement, and we’re asking questions about our alternatives.”

Noble adds that with seven plants and over 1,000 employees across the country, the company is “not concerned” about handling any rise in demand.

“For us, a family-owned business, it’s can we get more support, particularly from the government, to help us by giving us more share of business, including us on specifications, and maybe not including U.S. companies, for the time being.”

However, with trade tensions continuing to intensify between Canada and the U.S., Noble also voices concerns about the potential impact of tariffs on the paint industry, and specifically retaliatory tariffs, which he says could disrupt cross-border supply chains.

“That would be problematic for all paint companies, because there are raw materials that need to cross up into Canada, and [if retaliatory tariffs were imposed] that would be very difficult for all Canadian companies, and even U.S. companies operating in Canada.”