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John Ivison: Sneaky U.S. marketers are ‘maple washing’ past Canadian boycotts

Competition authorities will need to get their elbows up to protect against misleading country-of-origin labels

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Most people’s contribution to fighting President Donald Trump’s trade war is the small but symbolic gesture of buying Canadian.

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One poll last year suggested three-quarters of Canadians are buying more Canadian goods; more than half are boycotting U.S. products; and nearly half are reconsidering travel to the U.S. (The number of trips by car and plane south of the border dropped 28 per cent to 22.9 million in 2025, according to Statistics Canada.)

John Ivison: Sneaky U.S. marketers are ‘maple washing’ past Canadian boycotts Back to video

Some retailers and provincial liquor boards, such as in Ontario and B.C., have made life easier for consumers by clearly marking Canadian products, or taking U.S. goods off the shelves altogether.

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But it’s not always that straightforward. Picking up a hot chocolate from Tim Hortons, for example, means buying a product of U.S.-based Restaurant Brands International, even though it’s prepared in Canada. Kirkland Signature Maple Syrup is a private-label brand of the U.S. retailer, Costco, but is also made in Canada.

Some U.S. companies appear to be getting wise to the shift in consumer behaviour.

At the Canada Health Food Association’s (CHFA’s) Natural Organic Wellness trade show in Vancouver last month, an American water company called Path displayed a product it is planning to launch in Canada, complete with a white refillable aluminum bottle packaged with a large red maple leaf.

Another bottle featured the Toronto Blue Jays, which is celebrating its 50th season this year. While Clearly Canadian is the official sparkling water of the Blue Jays, a note to Path’s investors said successful launches with the Dallas Mavericks and Toronto Blue Jays “are now translating into real retail and on-premise impact.”

Danijel Slisko, a product designer at Calgary-based marketing firm Danijel and Co., has accused Path of “maple washing” a product that is sourced in America and shipped north.

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“Maple washing erodes trust in genuinely Canadian brands,” he said. “As a designer, misrepresentation is a big deal in our industry.”

Slisko designed the packaging for North Water, a Canadian company that sources glacier water from the Rockies. He said the Path packaging “could reasonably create the impression of Canadian origin and influence purchasing decisions.”

He said he has contacted the Competition Bureau to see whether the practice contravenes the misleading representation provisions of the Competition Act. The Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act is the relevant statute that prohibits misleading packaging. Loblaws was fined recently for promoting imported broccoli slaw as Canadian. The rules for food are enforced by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Saawan Logan, the co-founder and CEO of North Water, said a stall at the CHFA’s trade show hosted by Ontario-based natural products broker, Marsham, was promoting Path’s Canadian launch. She said that while Path is imported purified water from a municipal system in California “with electrolytes added for taste,” North Water sells untouched water from glacier-fed springs in the Canadian Rockies. “We have the best water in the world and here we have a company pretending to be Canadian. I’d never put an American flag on my bottle and say: ‘I’m American’ when I’m not,” she said.

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Logan said in the context of the trade war, the spat has added significance. “Canadians are fighting for a space to protect what they have,” she said.

Emails to Path, Marsham and the Toronto Blue Jays seeking comment for this story were not returned by deadline.

The concern here is that this is the tip of the glacier: that, if the trade war deepens, maple washing will become harder to spot. There are excellent AI-powered apps like Maple Scan and Buy Beaver that see through such subterfuge by analyzing product photos and providing origin information.

But how many people grabbing a bottle of water in a convenience store are going to spend time taking a photo of the bottle and then searching for a Canadian alternative?

The competition authorities need to get their elbows up early to counter a prospective flood of misleading country-of-origin disputes.

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