Some people like to buy North American cars. They think that by buying a GM or a Ford or some such, they're helping to keep jobs in Canada. There's no guarantee, though, that any given domestic car isn't, in fact, made in Mexico. This is the issue: how do you know which car is actually made in Canada? Would you, in fact, be better off buying a Toyota made in Cambridge? Enter a clever idea for a website that I know I'm never going to get around to doing.
If you ask the car salesperson where any given care is made, and where the components are from, s/he isn't terribly likely to have good answers. You could ask the company itself, but that means getting bogged down in automated phone system hell for every make of car you're interested in. It's probably easier to just ask your friendly neighbourhood auto workers union. That's a bit of a hassle, though. It takes a motivated consumer to do such homework. So, why not have a website that aggregates product recommendations from the people who actually make those products? The CAW tells you which cars are actually made in Canada, garment workers tell you which brands give them a reasonably fair deal. I think it would be a very useful little tool. And I'd totally use it, too. But do I look like I need another project in the pipeline?
If you ask the car salesperson where any given care is made, and where the components are from, s/he isn't terribly likely to have good answers. You could ask the company itself, but that means getting bogged down in automated phone system hell for every make of car you're interested in. It's probably easier to just ask your friendly neighbourhood auto workers union. That's a bit of a hassle, though. It takes a motivated consumer to do such homework. So, why not have a website that aggregates product recommendations from the people who actually make those products? The CAW tells you which cars are actually made in Canada, garment workers tell you which brands give them a reasonably fair deal. I think it would be a very useful little tool. And I'd totally use it, too. But do I look like I need another project in the pipeline?
Leave a comment