Edmonton-made app mirrors rising Canadian pride amid U.S. tariffs threat

The Shop Canadian app is available to download. (Miriam Valdes-Carletti/CTV News Edmonton

Two local developers are looking to support Canadian businesses with their newest app.

The effort by Edmonton’s William Boytinck and Matthew Suddaby to create the Shop Canadian app comes as people across the country look to shop local amid delayed tariffs by the United States.

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Boytinck was trying to figure out how to determine the origin of the food he was buying when he was struck by an ‘a ha!’ moment.

“I was trying to figure out if what we were eating was Canadian, and I had to jump through hoops to try and figure it out,” Boytinck told CTV News Edmonton.

“Then I came up with the idea on the spot being like, ‘What information does a barcode give me?’”

He and Suddaby decided to create Shop Canadian as a result.

With a quick scan on your phone, the app will tell you if a product is Canadian made or not using a product standardization database.

“We have close to 10,000 companies already registered and, at this point, close to 15,000 unique products scanned,” Boytinck said.

The app uses a rating system for customers to collect crowd-sourced information.

Since the talk of potential tariffs on Canadian goods by the U.S. started weeks ago following the election of President Donald Trump, Canadians have been spending more time checking labels to find out where a product is made.

That’s something the Angus Reid Institute says is a renewed sense of pride in being Canadian.

“You’ve got Canadians reacting quite strongly and profoundly to the rhetoric and the belligerence of the Trump White House,” Shachi Kurl, the institute’s president, told CTV News Edmonton.

A recent Angus Reid Institute study found that since December, both pride and deep emotional attachments to Canada have risen 10 per cent.

Kurl said the Shop Canadian app is one way people are showing their pride.

“You’re going to see a lot more small, micro examples of this as people try to find creative ways to buy Canadian,” Kurl said.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Miriam Valdes-Carletti and Connor Hogg