A maplewashed minefield

Pity the poor patriotic Canadian consumer.

Since the start of the trade war with the U.S., a trip to the supermarket has meant being bombarded with the maple leaf in every aisle and a confusing barrage of labels and banners.

Product of Canada. Made in Canada. Assembled in Canada. Prepared in Canada. Crafted in Canada. Even Designed in Canada. And sometimes that’s for products like roasted coffee or lemonade, where the main ingredient can only be grown in our chilly climate at a botanical garden.

“I think I've received more questions about Made in Canada and Product of Canada type claims in the past few months than I have in the entire rest of my career combined,” said Julia Kappler, a partner at Gowling WLG in Montreal, specializing in advertising, marketing and regulatory law.

“Businesses are really wanting to emphasize their Canadian operations or the aspects of their business or production that happen in Canada. What we're seeing is a lot of them coming to us asking what they can and can't state or claim about the origin of their products or their business, given their specific realities.” 

That’s because Canadian consumers, angered at Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on key sectors of the economy and his threat to make Canada the 51st state, are actively avoiding American-sourced products and looking for Canadian alternatives.

Companies and consumers who never paid much attention to country of origin labelling and related issues are now confronted with a complex and sometimes poorly understood regulatory landscape.

When it comes to determining the origin of a product, jurisdiction is divided between two federal agencies. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency handles food products, while the Competition Bureau handles non-food products. The two agencies cooperate on their work, with the Competition Bureau primarily responsible for deceptive marketing practices and misleading advertising.

Most country of origin labelling is voluntary, but there are strict criteria for using the two most important labels, Made in Canada and the more recent Product of Canada designation. The labels are very similar but not identical for food and non-food products, like clothing and furniture.

The Made in Canada standard has been around since the 1980s. It states that at least 51 per cent of the total direct costs of making a product, including ingredients, must be incurred in Canada, and the last substantial transformation also has to take place here.

It’s not necessarily that difficult to reach that standard. Mike von Massow, a professor of food economics at the University of Guelph, gave the example of reconstituted orange juice. The frozen raw material may arrive in Canada by ship, thaw and get turned into a consumer product, but he says it can “count as Made in Canada because the labour, water and packaging are from Canada” — even if the juice concentrate is imported from the U.S. or Brazil.

That led to the development of a stricter Product of Canada designation in 2008. 

Not only does the product need to undergo final transformation in Canada, but at least 98 per cent of the ingredients and total direct costs of production and manufacturing must take place here.

“Product of Canada became the gold standard and the ultimate assurance of Canadian content,” says Irma Shaboian, an associate in the competition and foreign investment group at Stikeman Elliott LLP in Toronto. 

“Made in Canada was reserved for products with mostly Canadian processing, but with some imported content.”

The CFIA also accepts other designations like Roasted and blended in Canada for coffee or Prepared in Canada provided they’re not deceptive. 

But Sylvain Charlebois, director of the agri-food analysis lab at Dalhousie University, thinks that some claims beyond that list are “mostly nonsense.” That includes products that put the maple leaf in their brand name to make them look Canadian.

“Created or designed in Canada is another example of maple washing as far as I’m concerned,”he says. 

“I don’t think it should be allowed.”

One such product is canned Habitant pea soup. Originally developed in Quebec, the business was purchased by Campbell Soup in 1989, which made the product at its Toronto plant until 2018, when the facility was closed with the loss of 380 jobs.

Since that time, Habitant soup, along with other Campbell soup brands, have all been imported into Canada from south of the border. If you buy Habitant French Canadian Pea Soup at your local grocer, it’s actually made in the U.S. But it includes the designation Designed in Canada on the label.

A spokesman for Campbell Soup in New Jersey said that the Designed in Canada signifier was introduced in 2018 to designate a product “created based on Canadian taste preferences, insights or recipes.” As for Habitant pea soup, he said the peas are grown by Canadian farmers, and has followed the same recipe for 100 years. 

Shaboian says that while there’s no official definition of what Designed in Canada means, such a claim still falls under the Bureau’s jurisdiction when it comes to misleading advertising. 

“If the general impression being conveyed by Designed in Canada is an overreach, then that could be problematic,” she says.

The Competition Bureau says it has seen a surge in public interest related to Made in Canada claims about non-food products. Between Feb. 13 and March 13, there were 14,000 website views of the agency’s enforcement guidelines compared to just 913 a year earlier. The agency declined to provide any information on active investigations, however.

Likewise, the CFIA says it has received 88 complaints from the public about country of origin claims on food labels or advertising between Nov. 1, 2024 and May 26, 2025. Of the complaints investigated, 22 claims were found to be non-compliant, with most cases related to the mislabeling of country of origin for bulk produce at retail. The CFIA says the companies have taken corrective action.

Beyond country of origin, other labelling can just add to consumer confusion. There’s the grading of produce and meat, including Canada Fancy for apples and Canada Prime for beef. Those descriptors include a maple leaf, but they apply to foreign as well as Canadian products.

Canada Organic, an accreditation body for organic products, includes a maple leaf in its logo but its products aren’t necessarily Canadian. A product with a Canada Organic label can be imported from U.S. or elsewhere, although the CFIA says the producer should note on the label if the product inside is actually imported, which isn’t always the case.

The CFIA requires any meat product that goes through a federally-accredited facility to include a logo which consists of a maple leaf and a number that identifies the actual plant. However, as von Massow notes, the meat doesn’t necessarily have to be Canadian. In other words, frozen New Zealand ground beef imported to Canada in bulk and repackaged at a Toronto plant into small retail packages has a maple leaf on it.

“It’s not malfeasance on the part of the companies involved, but at a time when we’re focused on provenance, it’s without a doubt misleading,” he says.

When it comes to enforcement, there’s a pretty slender history of jurisprudence. The last significant case dates from 2016 when the Competition Bureau alleged that Moose Knuckles, a brand of parkas, was describing itself as Made in Canada when, in fact, much of the garment was made in Vietnam and only finishing work was done here. The case was settled out of court with Moose Knuckles agreeing to make a $750,000 donation to charity and to be more specific in describing its Canadian content in the future.

According to the settlement, the company “agreed to make it clearer that certain parkas are in fact made with Canadian and imported components and will ensure that representations made about parkas in Canada and worldwide abide by the settlement.”

More cases could soon hit the courts. Later this month, as a result of changes to the Competition Act, private parties will have the opportunity for the first time to bring civil cases to the Competition Tribunal against companies for deceptive marketing practices and seek damages for alleged harm. 

Until now, that right has been solely in the hands of the Competition Bureau itself.