i Love Made In Canada
The best of authentic Canadian-made products.

Websites in Canada
All you need to develop, maintain, and promote websites in Canada.

Real Estate in Canada
All you need to buy, sell, or rent real estate in Canada.

Gardening in Canada
Canadian garden directory and resources.

Boating in Canada
Online guide to boats and boating in Canada.

Fishing in Canada
Online guide to fishing in Canada.

Camping in Canada
Online guide to camping in Canada.

RVing in Canada
Online guide to RVing in Canada.

Canadian-Made Boats
Canadian handcrafted boats and more.

Really Made In Canada
Local goods and services actually made in Canada.

Canadian Directories
Detailed online listings of Canadian businesses and organizations.

Verified Canadian
Your brand of made in Canada.

PROTECTING "Made in Canada" ™

Welcome to the REALLY Made IN Canada ™ PROJECT, home of VERIFIED Canadian ™, the "Made in Canada" Directories, "Made in Canada" News, our proprietary Statements Of Disclosure, and a growing ensemble other popular "pro-Canadian" online tools to Protect "Made in Canada" ™ - and ALL that involves! We've been at this project for years, and our work, combined with the work of other dedicated organizations like ours, is responsible for changes in laws, regulations and attitudes which are essential to the well-being of Canadians, the Canadian economy, our resources, and the environment.

REALLY "Made in Canada" Good & Services!
Sample REALLY "Made in Canada" Directory Pages!
List YOUR Business, Products & Services FREE!
The REALLY Made IN Canada ™ PROJECT
Status Report
Next Steps
Canadian Directories
VERIFIED Canadian ™
Special Features

REALLY Made IN Canada ™ PROJECT « YOU ARE HERE!

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The REALLY Made IN Canada ™ PROJECT

The REALLY Made IN Canada ™ PROJECT is a unique grassroots undertaking involving a compilation of information, initiatives, and resources which have grown exponentially since its inception several years ago.

Our original inspiration and driving force was the troubling displacement of local Canadian businesses by large transnational corporations and importers of cheap "NOT Made in Canada" goods. Thanks to, what we consider, glaring "loopholes" in the "Made in Canada" and "Product of Canada" government regulations and guidelines, big box importers have been systematically decimating local Mom and Pop shops across the country while dramatically reducing the number of and depreciating the quality of good jobs for hard working Canadians.

Our Original Goals

We felt something significant had to be done about this, so we started this project with the following goals in mind:

Get People Talking -- Raise public awareness about issues related to local economy, globalization, government track record, and of course "Made in Canada" and "Product of Canada" labelling problems.
Create a Support Network -- Use the power of the Internet to create a nationwide infrastructure available to serve truly local Canadian-owned and operated businesses offering Canadian-made (by common sense standards - not government semantics) goods and services.
Improve Business Directories -- Create a new generation of online consumer and B2B directories which offered all the conveniences of "traditional" directories but had the proprietary distinction of an open-ended multi-tiered reference offering much more than just contact information and business addresses.
Redefine "Made in Canada" Priorities -- Break away from the broken and chronically deficient "Made in Canada" / "Product of Canada" designations to lay the groundwork for an independently defined and managed set of standards to augment "traditional" business listings with rich overlays of supplementary details - of measurable interest to consumers.
No Big Business Bucks -- Develop and grow the project with minimal dependence on large corporate funding to try and avoid the classic pitfalls of endeavours beholden to big business investors.

The Challenges

This project is the perfect definition and example of the "chicken/egg" problem! Anyone who has experienced starting something from virtually nothing, will appreciate the initial and ongoing growing pains we "enjoy" daily:

Empty Shelves or No Shelves? -- As our project is oriented to offer Canadian communities large and small with valuable tools to encourage, discover, and support local goods and service providers, we had to decide on whether to publish only communities for which we already had extra "Made in Canada" details or to frame out the whole country with "reserved tables" for our "Made in Canada" guests of honour. Either way, it was inevitable that some impatient visitors might take exception to our decision.
Sorting Results Unoffensively -- One of the biggest challenges to offering a traditional business directory with additional disclosures regarding Canadian ownership, labour practices, detailed product origins, environmental practices, and corporate histories for a dynamic, ever-unfolding, compilation, is presenting the information clearly enough to avoid some visitors from screaming foul.
Fostering Revenue Opportunities -- With just good intentions in mind and a willingness to work days and nights, we knew that there was going to be a long stretch of peanut butter and jam lunches until we reached some level of critical mass.

REALLY Made IN Canada ™ Version 1.0

We had to start somewhere and we knew that, however we structured our project, some folks would love us, and others might complain and pick on the way in which we chose to reconcile our goals with our challenges:

Resource Libraries -- There is no shortage of topics related to Canadian issues, so crafting an open-ended online directory of resources was probably one of the easiest aspects of starting the project.

VERIFIED Canadian ™ -- We quickly discovered that the phrase "REALLY Made IN Canada" was quite a mouthful to say out loud when qualifying OUR idea of "Made in Canada" businesses and products, so we added the VERIFIED Canadian ™ brand to our arsenal of sorting tools. This designation is a very important and distinguishing aspect of our business directory.

Canadian Business Directories -- We believed that with over one million listings of businesses operating in Canada sorted and stashed away in our regional directories we stood a decent chance of being noticed in communities all over the country. Each of our community directories offers FREE support and promotional services to truly Canadian businesses with sections of each business category reserved for qualifying VERIFIED Canadian ™ businesses.

Our INCLUSIVE Policy -- Rather than exclude businesses which do not meet our proprietary VERIFIED Canadian ™ or REALLY Made IN Canada ™ standards, or have not yet submitted any supplementary information (there is NO FEE for this), we opted to INCLUDE ALL BUSINESSES, but to sort them according to their participation (visa vis voluntary disclosures) in our project and offer clear explanations of various the listing types.

Sample pages from our directories with
REALLY Made IN Canada ™ goods and services:

Voluntary Disclosures -- All business in our scope of Canadian communities are invited to submit our proprietary Statement of Disclosure which affords them the opportunity discuss in great detail (at NO COST) aspects of their business including: ownership, hiring practices, breakdowns of any product component origins, environmental practices, company track record, and promotional details about their offerings.
Customer Reviews -- For each of our communities across the country, we provide locals and visitors a forum to talk about their experiences with local businesses. Aside from not publishing reviews with profanities or overtly hateful comments, we do not edit or censor comments, whether they are negative or positive in nature. The Internet has demonstrated that web surfers pack a couple bags of salt when they muse over the ramblings of others.
Google Ads -- This was a tough initial decision. Ultimately, we hope to see more local Canadin business advertising directly on our pages, but in fairness to Google, the ads which appear on our pages are pretty good (and relevant) for the most part. Canadian businesses DO promote their products and services through Google advertising, and many of them enjoy spots on our pages.
Suggestion Box -- The most valuable component of our project is the feedback from our visitors. There is a feedback form or a clear link to our feedback page on most of our pages. If someone wants to tell us something, we have made it easy to do so (even though, sometimes we may regret having done so).

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Status Report

For the most part, we feel that the project has gone very well so far. There is no questioning the incredible prominence our various offerings enjoy on the web. This is clearly evidenced by an increase in the number of: businesses submitting their Statements of Disclosure, customer reviews, feedback from across the country, and the temperature of our poor little server during prime time hours!

But, just as our increased visibility has introduced us to many Canadians who appreciate our project, there is always the other side of the proverbial coin.

Our Fan Club is Growing!

We always knew that there was a large segment of the Canadian population which would immediately grasp the nature and importance of our project, and be willing to work with us through our growing pains and evolutions:

Mom & Pop Shops -- We confess that we have a soft spot for local Canadian "Mom & Pop" shops. From soap makers to furniture builders, small Canadian business owners seem to appreciate the tools and services we offer them, at NO COST, to ensure they are recognized for their Canadian qualifications.
Canadian Inventors -- We love to promote Canadian inventors as much as they seem to enjoy the respect they get from us.
Service Providers -- We're not stuck on limiting our search for great "Made in Canada" makers. There are plenty of service provider who hire Canadians locally, and they deserve equal credit too.
White Collar -- Accountants, inspectors, and lawyers are some of professionals we have had the pleasure of helping make their "Made in Canada" status known to others.
Blue Collar -- Construction contractors, and hard working Canadians get the white glove treatment from us as well.
Big Business -- Our efforts thus far have extended even to large Canadian corporations which happen to do the kinds of things in the kinds of ways that other Canadians appreciate.
Caught in The Middle Manufacturers -- One of the most notable advantages to our approach to "Made in Canada" is that we make it possible for Canadian manufacturers to explain their product and component sourcing choices. Many Canadians already understand that some parts are just not available in Canada, and unlike most recent "Made in Canada" and "Product of Canada" rules which disqualify some struggling Canadian manufacturers, we let ALL businesses explain what they do and why they do it so Canadians can decide from a position of being informed rather than the government defintion of "Made in Canada" of the day.
Even Goat Herders -- There are Candians living far out in mountain country who have expressed their appreciation for our efforts to get them out of the shadows of industrial farm conglomerates.

Not Everyone Appreciates What We Do

Even though the vast majority of feedback we receive from Canadian shoppers and business owners is positive and encouraging (if not downwright heart warming), from time to time we get a complaint or a note from a frustrated visitor:

Importers -- It's not that we're really surprised that some importers don't like what we do, but hostile accusations of "misleading representation" (yup, we got one of those) do tend to get our backs up. It seems that some businesses which are losing ground because of growing Canadian support for "Made in Canada" ignore what we do offer and have achieved over the past years and skip right to what is missing as far as they are concerned. We will go quite a distance to fine tune how we present our content, but at some point we just have to recognise sour grapes for what they are.
Confused Surfers -- When a feedback note starts out with "HEY, WHERE'S ALL THE MADE IN CANADA STUFF?", or "THOSE GUYS DON'T SELL MADE IN CANADA PRODUCTS" that's our (painful) cue to recognize that, despite our ongoing efforts to clearly label the various portions of our directories according who has been qualified as VERIFIED Canadian ™ (and what that means) and who has not, we either have to bump up the font sizes one more notch (at the expense of the majority of visitors who breeze through our sites without any issues), or we have to draw straws and handle these (thankfully infrequent) complaints one at a time in person.
Disappointed "Made in Canada" Lovers -- In a perfect world, every community in every province and territory of our directories would be loaded to the brim with authentic "Made in Canada" goods and service providers. But such is not the case, nor do we promise that. We're doing our very best to update our directories with great Canadian businesses across the country, but this takes time and frankly, we cannot nurture communities without first having a presence in them. So when someone rushes over to one of our communty directories and does not find any "Made in Canada" products, they have the choice of simply complaining, or they may appreciate that we do offer listings for other businesses as well, and by and supporting our efforts in their community, they can be part of the SOLUTION.

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Next Steps

We certainly have our work cut out for us, but we are VERY inspired by the notes of support we receive along with the ever increasing number of voluntary disclosures from small and large businesses across the country. We believe we are on the right track and there could not be a better time to do what we are doing, so we will!

Refine Claims/Disclaims -- Whenever we receive feedback which suggests there may be a pattern of miscommunication, we go back to the drawing board and try to identify and fix such problems.
Add More Businesses -- The key to the success of our concept is to populate our directories with as many VERIFIED Canadian ™ busineses as we can - as QUICKLY as we can. We're on the right track and the applications are streaming in. We thank all the Canadians and businesses who support us and have faith in the soundness of our project!
Recruit Community Reps -- By training community members to spread the word to local businesses and organizations about the services we offer and to collect information locally, we can speed up the growth of our compilations.
Stay Positive -- Our success so far does speak to our (relatively) limitless optimism, and so long as we stay clar of the nay-sayers and be sure to get enough hugs from our fans, the REALLY Made IN Canada ™ PROJECT WILL reach its goals!

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Canadian Online Directories »

Do you want to "shop Canadian" but you're finding it difficult to get ALL the information you want to know about a company and its products without having to click your way around the web universe several times? Our comprehensive "Made in Canada" online business directories are designed to serve the needs of today's Canadian consumer! Our regional business directories let you start right in YOUR community! Our topical business directories help you browse an entire province or territory by category! This massive, well organized, compilation of local Canadian businesses is updated daily and provides you with all the information you need to make the best local choices!

Shop "Made in Canada" in YOUR province or territory:

Browse Canadian SPECIAL INTEREST Directories:

Boats & Boating in Canada

Browse Canadian Business Listings by CATEGORY:

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VERIFIED Canadian - YOUR Brand of "Made in Canada" ™ »

Even the latest versions of "Product of Canada" and "Made in Canada" government regulations don't come close to telling you ALL you need to know about "Canadian" businesses, goods, and services. If you're going to "shop Canadian", be sure to do it right and watch for the VERIFIED Canadian ™ brand. If you're looking for 100% Canadian owned, 100% Canadian labour, 100% "Made in Canada" products, 100% "Product of Canada" produce, 100% Canadian services, 100% organic, squeaky clean corporate histories, and progressive environmentally friendly practices, VERIFIED Canadian ™ is YOUR ultimate consumer tool! Support your fellow Canadian workers and LOCAL business owners from coast to coast to coast - DEMAND VERIFIED Canadian ™ !

Canadian business owners, get your company, products, and services VERIFIED Canadian ™ NOW - it's FREE!

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Special Features

REALLY Made In Canada ™ 100% CANADIAN SERVICES -- REALLY Made In Canada ™ is DEVOTED to supporting local Canadian economy and the very same diverse expertise we apply to our own national initiative is available to you as well!
REALLY Made In Canada ™ OPINION EDITORIALS -- Read and share ideas and opinions about contemporary issues faced by the people of Canada and other nations around the world!
REALLY Made In Canada ™ STATEMENT OF DISCLOSURE -- Our proprietary Statement Of Disclosure goes farther than the deceptive "Made In Canada" label and offers you in-depth information about Canadian companies, Canadian products, Canadian services, imported components, corporate criminals, fair trade, organic certification, product safety, corporate social responsiblity, Canadian labour practices, environmental practices!
REALLY Made In Canada ™ RESOURCES & LINKS -- Get plugged into an exciting world of kindred spirits across Canada and the rest of the world - all interested in working towards a sustainable and sensible path!
REALLY Made In Canada ™ NEWS -- Stay on top of the latest domestic and international news as it applies to issues related to Canadian-made goods and services.

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PROTECTING "Made in Canada" ™

Table of CONTENTS

The REALLY Made IN Canada ™ PROJECT

Status Report

Next Steps

Canadian Online Directories »

Shop "Made in Canada" in YOUR province or territory:

Browse Canadian SPECIAL INTEREST Directories:

Browse Canadian Business Listings by CATEGORY:

VERIFIED Canadian - YOUR Brand of "Made in Canada" ™ »

Special Features

What may we find for YOU?