William Watson: For the good of the country, buy non-Canadian

financialpost.com:

I got what looked like a nice email from Amazon last week. There were no spelling mistakes, so I figured it wasn’t a Russian bot and I could click on it. I was right. It was Amazon announcing a new initiative promoting Quebec products: “Les produits du Québec.” How the titans of globalization cower before the power of local interests!

Amazon is partnering with a non-profit of that name to help Quebecers like me “shop local and support communities close to home.” The non-profit was founded in 2022 and is, of course, supported by the provincial Ministère de l’Économie, de l’Innovation et de l’Energie. I say “of course” because everything in Quebec, and pretty much everywhere else in this country, is supported by the government. I’m sure it won’t be long before the feds pony up some subsidies, too. (Probably in the corporate person of “Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions.”)

Les Produits du Québec has three levels of certification: Product of Québec, Manufactured in Québec and Designed in Québec. This last is like “Designed in California,” which Apple has made famous. It’s for people who don’t like the idea of China producing all their tech but also don’t want tech to cost three times what it currently does. As long as it’s designed by cool Californians — some of whom may even be immigrants, that’s OK — it can be assembled in Chinese mega-factories by people frazzling their eyes and wrecking their spines bending over close work all day long.

To get the label “Product of Quebec,” 85 per cent of “the direct costs related to the purchase of inputs, including raw materials, their processing, and assembly are incurred in Quebec.” Also, the “last substantial transformation of the product,” i.e., not just wrapping it,