What does it mean to be a Canadian business in the midst of tariffs and the Buy Canadian movement?

As a 100% owned and operated Canadian business, DR Mower parts wholly supports the Buy Canadian movement.  Canadian businesses are the lifeblood of our communities. Not only do we employ Canadians, we also support our communities and other local businesses, lease office and warehouse space, pay Canadian taxes, licenses, and fees, and adhere to Canadian environmental standards. We also stand firmly behind Canadian cultural beliefs.

As much as we'd like to source our parts within Canada, the reality is that lawn and garden and small engine parts simply aren't made in Canada and haven't been for decades.  Much like the auto industry, even if source materials come from Canada or assemblies are put together here, no manufacturer within our industry makes truly Canadian parts.

Whole goods (lawn mowers, snowblowers, tractors, chainsaws etc), no matter the brand, are truly multi-national products.  Many/most parts come out of Chinese factories. They may be shipped to factories in the US or assembled in Mexico. We also see parts manufactured in India, Germany, and Vietnam, to name a few, but nothing marked "Made in Canada."

We are expecting the parts industry to be subject to tariffs at some point.  In the February round of tariff saber rattling, the Canadian government specifically listed lawn mowers as one of the goods subject to counter tariffs. Likely because they know that none are actually made in Canada, so all whole goods arrive here across borders - and mainly the US border.

What can you do? To save money, we recommend fixing, rather than replacing your lawn and garden equipment.  There are many parts in the Canadian distribution network and nothing has been specifically mentioned regarding tariffs on parts (yet!). There has been no whole scale increase in parts prices (yet!).

What are we doing?  While we can't source our parts from Canada, we are doing everything we can to source our shipping materials from Canadian companies, we generally try to ship using Canadian companies including Canada Post, Purolator, CanPar, GLS Canada, Dicom, and Midland. Within our warehouses, we're purchasing the products we use from Canadian sources and local businesses.

What can we do together?  Remember that businesses in Canada need your support and we want to support you. These are uncertain times and tariffs will add to that uncertainty. We need to be united as a community and remember we are all trying to make good purchasing decisions and stand together as Canadians.