South Okanagan businesses are promoting and pushing Canadian-made products in light of tariff threats from the United States.

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump decided to delay his promise to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports, but with the financial pressure looming, locals are seeking out options.

Local Motive Organic Market is launching Canadian-only Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscription boxes, aiming to boost the local economy and reduce reliance on imported goods.

“Consumers are really interested in how to find and source local products, and they're looking for solutions that are maybe not things you would find in a regular grocery store,” said Thomas Tumbach, Penticton's LocalMotive store owner and farmer.

While about 80 per cent of items in his store are from local producers — either farmers or manufacturers of Canadian food-related items — there are still some items that come from the southern neighbours.

“Typically, we feature celery or broccoli or cauliflower, things from California. We can't grow those at this time year,” Tumbach added.

“But what we're doing with this, Canadian only box, is we're really trying to highlight those items that are the best at this time of year. So there's really great selection of local root crops.”

It’s not the only business seeing a change in demand for Canadian products, as one locally-owned liquor store has seen customers consistently ask for direction on Canadian alcohol.

Megan McKay Hall, partner at Martin Street Liquor Merchants, said it's rare for spirits to be categorized by imports or domestic, as wine often is.

"People don't really pay attention with liquor. Specifically, people don't pay attention to what is Canadian made and what is U.S. made," she said. "There's all sorts of really amazing Canadian alternatives for some of the big brands, especially for whiskey, especially for vodka, and then locally made, there's a lot of artisan spirits that people have started to go on to.

"I hope that more people are looking at actually coming and investing their dollars in Canadian products and Okanagan based products, because we need them, and we have them."

The Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce said part of the difficulty for consumers is determining what is Canadian or what is just made in Canada since the lack of a uniform Canadian labelling system complicates efforts.

“So there's difficulty in that, and that's something that can be addressed in the future. Certainly this trade war threat, this tariff threat, has opened our eyes to just how susceptible we are to our neighbours down south and what can happen when we put so many eggs in one basket,” said chamber executive director Michael Magnusson.

For example, a Product of Canada, for non-food products, can only be used on items when at least 98 per cent of the costs of producing or manufacturing the goods have been incurred in Canada.

A Made in Canada label requires the last substantial transformation of the good must have occurred in Canada, and at least 51 per cent of production or manufacturing costs must have been in the country.

To have a product labelled as local, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency says it must be produced in the province or territory in which it is sold, or sold across provincial borders within 50 kilometres of the originating province or territory.

More information can be found here on the differences.

“It is challenging,” Tumbach said. “As a retailer, that's our next challenge, is to really up our game in terms of what items in our store are local. Some things are quite obvious because it is indicated on the label, but we're going to work extra hard now to indicate which things are local and which are imported.”

McKay Hall said it's on the store owners to tell people where things are from and why it's important to support local economy.

"We just have to educate people that there's comparable or better products that they can pick up that are manufactured in Canada," she said.

On top of that, many companies that are American-owned are operated by locals.

“There's certainly concern that we're hearing throughout the province, and through other chambers as well, of people saying, ‘Listen, I know it's an American franchise, but I'm Canadian. I live here. This is what supports my family,’” Magnusson said.

“We ask that you don't just make impulsive assumptions as to what may or may not be American. It could very well be Canadian.”

As an example, while Tim Hortons is no longer a Canadian company — it was bought out by Restaurant Brands International, majority-owned by Brazilian-based 3G Capital — local Nicole MacMillan is the owner and operator of multiple Tim Hortons locations in the South Okanagan which give back to local charities.

Magnusson said what also needs to happen is the dismantling of interprovincial trade barriers.

“It shouldn't be easier to sell our products to the United States than it is to sell to Alberta or Ontario, and that's really where we've done ourselves a disservice,” he said.

“If we can remove those trade barriers between the other provinces and ourselves, we could see Canadian GDP increase.”

McKay Hall said the change in January, which marked the first day of an inter-provincial agreement between B.C. and Alberta allowing approved B.C. wineries to sell directly to Alberta customers, will make a big difference.

"Hopefully some of the other provinces, if we were able to ship into those provinces, then it won't rely on imports as much as they do, such as a lot of California, a lot of European wines and other other brands. It's just harder for us to get into those provinces as it stands right now."

Tumbach said he hopes this point in time will help the community focus on purchasing from local growers, which can support a local food system.

“The economy is really suffering from us purchasing outside of our region, especially in regards to food,” he said.

“For many decades now we've been going further and further afield for what is more affordable. But as we're going to see here with tariffs, food that isn't grown locally is going to be more expensive, and all those years of sourcing out of our country mean that our local farms are suffering. They're not producing what they could.

“Let's get behind our local farmers and show them what we can do with local food. Stop importing food. Stop buying imported food. Let's drop the gloves with the states and eat locally.”