Standards
Three phrases get used interchangeably by almost everyone writing about this: designed in Canada, assembled in Canada, made in Canada. They mean different things. Here is what each one means on this site.
Made in Canada
The thing is cut, sewn, forged, blown or built here. A product designed here and produced elsewhere does not qualify, and neither does one imported and finished here. The work that turns materials into the object happens in a building in Canada, and we know which building.
Materials are a separate question. Viberg’s leather comes from tanneries around the world and the boot is still made in Victoria. We say where the object is made. Where the materials come from goes in the brand’s own notes, not in the claim.
Designed in Canada
The brand draws the thing here and has it produced somewhere else. This is a real category and not a lesser one, but it is not the same claim and we will not let it borrow the other one’s language. Brands in this category are labelled as such, plainly, on their own page.
Partly made in Canada
Some of the line is made here and some is not, or a product is assembled here from components made elsewhere. If we cannot establish which, the brand sits here rather than in the first category.
How we check
We take origin from the brand’s own about or FAQ page, not from directories. Directories routinely list American makers as Canadian. One made it into our first crawl and was caught on verification. Where a brand’s own site does not state where it manufactures, we say so on the page rather than inferring it.
What we do not claim
This site does not carry a verification badge. A marker that says verified has to mean something specific and checkable, and until the standard behind it is settled, shipping one would be worse than not having it. A wrong claim about origin is the one mistake this site could not recover from.
How product images are made
Two kinds of product photograph appear on this site. Some are the maker’s own, used exactly as delivered and credited by name on the card. The rest are ours: the real product, cut from the maker’s photograph and placed on a background we made. Either way, nothing about the product changes. Its shape, material, construction and any flaw stay exactly as shot. We move pixels, but we do not generate them.
We do not wait for a brand’s written permission before doing this. Asking first would leave this site unable to show most of what is in it. Every image sits inside an entry that names the maker and links to their own store. It never appears anywhere else on the site or in anything paid. If a maker asks us to take an image down, it comes down, without argument and without delay.
Brands that do not sell online
Some of the best makers here take orders by phone. MacAusland’s has run a mill in Bloomfield since 1870 and has no online store and no published prices. Those brands get a page and no product listings, because a product listing here means a price and a link to buy. The absence is about their shopfront, not their work.
Money
Submission is free and inclusion is not for sale, and no brand on this site has paid to be here. If a sponsorship model arrives, it will be labelled on the page it appears on, not disclosed somewhere you have to go looking for.