Prioritizing Canadian Advertisements: An Important Component for Promoting Lasting Change
June 13, 2025
There’s something remarkable happening in this country right now. Quietly, without government mandates or flashy campaigns, Canadians are choosing to buy Canadian. They’re turning over packages, reading fine print, checking company ownership, and making values-driven choices at the cash register.
They’re doing it despite the higher costs, despite the added effort, and despite the inconvenience. For a country not often defined by coordinated consumer activism, this sustained behaviour signals a meaningful shift.
But individual resolve, though powerful, has its limits. To make this movement durable—influencing supply chains, investment patterns, and market presence—it must be supported by institutions and policy. And there’s one significant area that has gone largely unexamined: the regulation of advertising.
Regulatory Bodies Do Protect Canadian Interests in Certain Sectors
Canada already protects domestic producers in certain ways. For instance, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has created regulations that mandate that broadcasters devote a certain percentage of television and radio programming to Canadian content. The logic is simple and sound: if we want our stories told, we need to create space for them. Similarly, our supply management system has set strict limits on how much foreign dairy can be imported tariff-free to protect domestic farmers and ensure long-term agricultural stability.
But advertising follows no such rule. Although the federal Competition Act, CASL, and provincial consumer protection laws govern truthfulness and privacy in ads, there is no comprehensive regime governing the origin or economic contribution of advertisers. Indeed, a recent government proposal to modernize Article 19 of the Income Tax Act implies a tacit recognition that Canada’s advertising landscape lacks mechanisms to privilege domestic media or advertising spend. As a result, any firm, domestic or foreign, can dominate the airwaves, social feeds, and billboards across this country. It doesn’t matter whether that company is headquartered in Canada or halfway around the world. It doesn’t matter whether they employ Canadians or not. It doesn’t matter whether their profits flow back into our economy or not.
Ensuring Canadian Advertisers Always Have a Voice
Advertising materially shapes public attention and thus economic choice. So if we’re serious about economic resilience, then we should be applying similar logic to advertising that we do to media broadcasting and dairy supply management. Not as a protectionist wall, but as a calibrated approach that prioritizes companies based on their actual contribution to Canada.
- Canadian-owned and operated companies should get front-of-line access to key advertising channels—whether that’s prime-time TV, national billboard campaigns, or digital real estate.
- Foreign companies with a meaningful Canadian footprint—those that manufacture here, hire here, pay taxes here—should be welcomed, but not prioritized.
- Foreign firms with no Canadian presence should still be allowed to advertise, but with clear limits. Their access shouldn’t come at the expense of domestic players who are actively contributing to the economy.
This isn’t about punishing international companies. It’s about aligning advertising prominence with economic contributions. Companies that meaningfully contribute to the economy should be given the benefit of advertising to the consumers within that economy.
Final Word
We’re seeing a rare and welcome convergence: public intent, national interest, and policy discourse are all aligning toward support for Canadian economic agency. Buying Canadian is commendable. Advertising Canadian, under sensible regulation, is transformative.
Because we know how advertising works. People buy what they see. People trust what they recognize. And in markets saturated by repetition, familiarity becomes persuasion. If we want the Buy Canadian movement to move beyond its grassroots beginning—to become embedded in habit, reflex, and norm—we need to shift the priorities that govern visibility itself.
Let’s match our public sentiment with policy that elevates our domestic economy in ways that endure—and matter. Let’s turn a moment of national intention into a system of national advantage—one where visibility is not just bought, but earned.
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