Canadian products avaliable for home improvement in light of trade war

With a trade war between Canada and the United States underway, and a surge in Canadian nationalism that has taken place recently, those who want to improve their home may be wondering how they could buy Canadian.

There are many options for those who want to buy Canadian products to upgrade their home for the spring, while also shopping locally. JJ’s Home Inspirations on Birch Avenue sells furniture, mattresses, bedding, giftware, area rugs, lamps, clothing, jewerly and more. Many of them are Canadian products.

“Our bedroom furniture – we’ve got Mako Wood, which is down in Richmond, I sell mattresses from Restonic, which is a company in Vancouver as well,” explained Julie McCollom, the owner of JJ’s Home Inspirations. “We sell Hush brand for mattresses, which is also Canadian, a lot of our bedding and decor is Canadian.”

There are also many ways for people to identify where they could find Canadian products to purchase for their home improvements in her store, McCollom remarked.  

“We’ve got Canada flags all over the store and most of our individual items that we show on the floor, we have a made-in-Canada sticker on them. Then people can just ask us to (if they want to know),” McCollom said.

Even before the tariffs, McCollom remarked in recent years she has noticed a trend of her customers buying more Canadian products where they can. In addition, McCollom said that people should be shopping locally when it comes to purchasing home products, adding that it supports the local economy.

“You know, we want to have businesses in town. So if you want small businesses in town, they need to be supported,” McCollom said. “We can price match any of the big box stores from out of town. We do our very best to keep our prices as low as possible from the get-go.”

She also added that if someone does go out of town for home purchases it could end up being more expensive than shopping locally.

“You might think that you are saving some money, but when you take into account your fuel and time to travel to a bigger centre, it maybe wouldn’t balance out that way,” McCollom elaborated.

As for the trade war between the United States and Canada, McCollom has gotten letters from US suppliers keeping her abreast of what has been going on.

“They’re just keeping us up to date. It’s really tough to know what’s going on because it seems to change sometimes on a daily basis,” McCollom remarked.

JJ’s Home Inspirations can be contacted through Facebook and is located at 205 Birch Avenue in 100 Mile House.