'Buy Canadian' campaign resonates with Manitobans as U.S. tariffs loom: online survey
Three-quarters of 600 respondents plan to stop buying American goods
Manitobans are changing their buying habits and travel plans as the threat of a trade war with the United States looms, an online survey suggests.
Three out of four Manitobans who responded to the Probe Research survey agreed or somewhat agreed that they plan to stop buying U.S.-made products as much as possible.
And six out of 10 of them agreed that they had cancelled or decided against a trip to the U.S. in the next six months.
"To see that people are really trying to reorient their consumer behaviour, reorient their travel plans, some of those sorts of things are really kind of remarkable to see," pollster Curtis Brown told host Faith Fundal on CBC Radio's Up to Speed on Tuesday.
The Probe Research survey, conducted from Feb. 3-6, questioned 600 adults living in Manitoba who were members of the company's proprietary panel or another national online panel.
Because an online panel is not a random sample, the survey doesn't have a margin of error, but a probabilistic sample of that size would have a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Minor statistical weighting was applied to the sample to reflect the province's population.
The survey was done as a "Buy Canadian" campaign, with both political and grassroots support, was happening in response to U.S. President Donald Trump signing orders that will impose tariffs on Canadian goods starting in March.
"I think it's, you know, really front and centre on people's minds in terms of when they're making those choices about how to spend their money," said Brown.
Among survey respondents living in Winnipeg and those with higher formal education, more than 85 per cent were likely to avoid buying American products, while just under 60 per cent of rural or northern respondents said the same thing.
"We saw a pretty substantial substantive difference there," Brown said.
Almost 90 per cent of respondents age 55 or older said they were likely to stop buying U.S.-made products. That figure was 75 per cent when all age groups were included.
Respondents 55 and older and those who lived in Winnipeg were also more likely put off plans to travel to the U.S., with more than 70 per cent agreeing they would cancel or decide against such a trip. Among those age 35-54, 54 per cent said they would postpone or cancel a trip.
Brandonite Dennis Hurley is among those avoiding U.S. travel, checking labels and prioritizing Canadian products, citing Trump's tariff threats as a motivator.
"I think that Americans are gonna be surprised at the pushback from Canadians," Hurley said.
"Oftentimes, you hear about stuff like people cancelling vacations. I think that's the start, and I don't think it's going to go away too soon. I think it's going to be a long-term thing."
Hurley can't recall the last time Canadians were so united, he said.
"It's really heartening, because I think that Canadians are coming together, because of the actions of the Americans."
Jacey Bouchard from Brandon is also being more mindful about buying Canadian and local. It's something she said has extended into her workplace.
"Even with my industry, being an esthetician, all the things we're bringing in, too, over the borders, we're definitely trying to shop more Canadian brands."
NDP and Liberal supporters surveyed were more likely to boycott U.S. goods and travel than Conservative supporters.
Among federal Liberal supporters surveyed, more than 90 per cent said they have cancelled or decided against a trip to the U.S. in the next six months as compared to just over one-third of federal Conservative supporters.
The poll asked respondents about some federal and provincial leaders to get a sense of the level of confidence people had in different politicians dealing with Trump and tariffs, Brown said.
Justin Trudeau and the Liberals had a confidence rate of 43 per cent, while a potential Conservative federal government led by Pierre Polivere had a rate of 46 per cent.
Respondents had a "relatively high level of buy-in" for Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew's abilities to handle tariffs, despite the issues being "in many ways largely out of their hands," Brown said, with six in 10 respondents "somewhat or very" confident in Kinew's ability to handle tariffs.
Just before the recent U.S. election, roughly one-third of people asked by the market research company said they were planning to delay or postpone a trip to the States.
The jump to 62 per cent in the February poll is notable, Brown said.
"Seeing that big of a jump in such a short amount of time was really something that I thought was … pretty remarkable," he said.
"That's really jumped up a lot in the last little while."
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with files from Chelsea Kemp