My guide to buying more Canadian / less American
In Person Groceries ➡️ Go basically anywhere but Walmart. Look for “Product of Canada” on packaging. “Made in Canada” is 2nd best. If the company is Canadian that is the 3rd best. For produce with no packaging ask someone at the store or use one of the buy Canadian apps.
Instacart (ordering groceries) ➡️ Voila (and use the shop local option in the app when possible) or https://montreal.lufa.com/en/marketplace/category/your-local-marketplace/specials
Amazon ➡️ Home Hardware, Canadian Tire, Princess Auto, KMS Tools, BMR, and Lee Valley for in person shopping. If you’re going to order online use the Canadian Tire App.
Google Drive ➡️ Sync. If anyone uses someone’s referral code they both get 1 extra GB so here’s mine. https://www.sync.com/?_sync_refer=181a30ae0
Netflix ➡️ Crave and CBC Gem
Disney Plus and Prime ➡️ Ahoy Matey, Sail the Seas
Uber Eats ➡️ Skip the Dishes
Burger King / Mcdonalds ➡️ A&W, Law & Order, Harvey's, or any local restraunt / https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_restaurant_chains
Starbucks / Mcdonalds Coffee ➡️ A local cafe or second Cup. Tim Hortons is half owned by an American company.
Subway ➡️ Mr Sub
Play Books (ebooks/ audio books app) ➡️ Kobo
Amazon ➡️ https://www.singingpebblebooks.ca/ for physical books
Dairy Queen ➡️ Chapmans from grocery store
Microsoft Office > https://www.libreoffice.org/ or you can host an Etherpad server https://etherpad.org/about
Pet Smart ➡️ Pet Valu or Ren's Pets
Default Android Apps by Google (messages/phone/contacts/notes/file explorer/gallery/etc...) ➡️ Various Fossify Apps (not Canadian but is open source and has no tracking)
Google Maps ➡️ HERE WeGo
Spotify ➡️ Qobuz
Google Search ➡️ Qwant
Tap with your Visa ➡️ Tap with your interact debit card
I was using hosthero for my domain as they are also 100% Canadian. I create new email addresses for every thing, not only for unlimited free trials but so if I get an email address leaked I just turn it off. EasyDNS is so much better with their wildcard email.
I self host my own password manager (vaultwarden), I self host my own pictures (immich), I self my own search engine (searXNG), and there are many other things.
I am trying to get away from Apple as much as I can, I have moved to HA for most of my home automation. I have a bunch of raspberry pi’s that do stuff, I have a 2014 Mac mini that was just sitting on my desk because it could no longer get updates that I installed Debian on and now works as a media server.
I got a firewall I could install openWRT on so that I could VPN into so that I could use my pihole setup and other services away from home. I do not want to be the product I want to use services with out being sold as much as I can.