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Shiftheads - Canadians Are Supposed to Buy Canadian - Is the Government Also Following Their Own Program?
Description
An American company runs the payment portal for an Ontario utility bill. Economist Moshe Lander uses that example to unpack how a business qualifies as Canadian in the first place, and why self-attestation with no audit trail leaves that definition wide open.
The discussion moves through the real cost of patriotic purchasing rules, from higher prices to lower value, and asks whether taxpayers get a say in that tradeoff. Lander also raises the jaywalking problem: rules people don't believe in are rules people find ways around.
By the end, the conversation lands on a harder question about consistency, whether government spending follows the same standard the government asks its citizens to meet.
Topics: Canadian content rules, procurement transparency, patriotic spending, government accountability, self-attestation
GUEST: Moshe Lander
Originally aired on 2026-07-27