This coming Tuesday, I'm going to be helping to build a house with Habitat for Humanity, on an all-women event that will feature head office and dealer staff from Kia Canada. I'm really looking forward to it.
I need to wear steel-toed work boots, and while H-4-H has boots to lend, the selection is naturally limited. I'd always wanted a pair for the odd time I'm messing around with work at home (and work boots are just so downright cool), so I figured this was a good excuse to buy myself a pair.
And since I'm one for putting my money where my mouth is, I wanted made-in-Canada boots. Shouldn't be so hard, huh?
Ha.
I went to Zeller's, which advertises itself as a Canadian company. The choices came from China, Vietnam and Cambodia.
I went to Mark's Work Wearhouse, again, another Canadian company. This one threw a pair from Bangladesh into the mix.
I went to Canadian Tire. Check out the first part of that name. Not only were all the boots made offshore, but they were all for men. Canadian Tire does not carry any workboots for women.
Now, in fairness, I might have easily found some at the specialty workboot shop in town, but they'd closed for the weekend, and I'm not going to have a whole lot of time on Monday. So, more out of curiosity than anything, I stopped in Wal-Mart. Yes, Wal-Mart, that great American tradition.
And I bought one of the two Canadian-made brands of boots that they had for sale.
As they say, go figure.