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Each year, in Canada and around the world, April 22nd is dedicated to honouring our planet and focussing on ways we can lessen our environmental impact.

I’ve never considered myself a tree-hugger, in any sense of the word. But we do recycle (at home and at the office) and use our city’s composting program. We also have a small (organic) vegetable patch in the backyard where we grow mainly tomatoes and fresh basil (yum!). But as I was preparing to write this post, I’ve been thinking that maybe I am kinder to Mother Earth that I originally thought...How, you ask? By buying Canadian!

1)    Every time I purchase a product made in Canada, I do my part to lower my carbon footprint. 9 times out of 10, a product made here will travel a much shorter distance to reach me than one made overseas. Less pollution is created by using less fossil fuel to bring the product to market.

2)    I know that Canadian manufacturing facilities are highly regulated in terms of allowable emissions and waste management. Not so in many other countries.

3)    A product made in Canada will not contain harmful components such as BPA, lead, melamine, etc. It keeps me, my family and my environment safe!

So buying Canadian is good for the environment! That calls for a celebration, no? Absolutely! Join us in celebrating Earth Day and you could win an awesome prize pack chock-full of healthy & eco-friendly products made in Canada! Included are:

1)    Natural memory foam Comfort Pillow made in Quebec, from Essentia. (value: $129)

2)    Organic wild rice products from Manitoba (rice, rice flour, rice flour linguine), from Naosap Harvest (value: $ 24.50)

 

3)    Natural liquid laundry detergent, shampoo & conditioner made in Ontario, from NatureClean (value: $30)

4)    Arm-bag made from recycled store banners in Quebec, from Eco-Handbags (value: $45.99)

5)    Eco-friendly "Green Earth" garden products made in Ontario, from Premier Tech (value: $80)

6)    Natural lip balms made in Ontario, from Fitlips (value:$24)

7)    Vouchers for organic non-dairy SoNice products made in B.C., from Earth’s Own (value: $30)

8)    Natural health products to reduce joint pain made in Ontario, from St.Francis Herb Farm (value: $60)

9)    Biodegradable garden waste bags made in Quebec, from Cascades (value: $16.50)

10)    Natural skin care products made in P.E.I., from The Great Canadian Soap Company (value: $30)

11)    Sustainable canned fish products processed in B.C., from Raincoast Trading (value:

12)    Natural mascara and lipstick made in Manitoba, from Pure Anada (value: $26)

13)    Gardener’s Dream Lotion made in B.C., from Aroma Crystal (value: $39.99)

14)    Majesta paper products made in N.B., from Majesta (value: $20.00)

15) Reusable produce bags made in Quebec, from Credo Bags (value: $25)

Total value: over $ 550.00 !!!

To enter the giveaway, do as many of the 3 following things as possible, as they each count for one entry. The more the merrier (and luckier)!

•    Leave us a comment below telling us what you do to help protect Mother Earth (Comments are moderated, so don't panic if your comment doesn't show up right away!);

•    Follow us on Twitter and mention the following: @BuyCndianFirst loves @EarthDayCanada #madeincanada;

•    Like us on Facebook.

The giveaway ends on Friday, April 20th at 5:00 PM ET. We will pick one name at random from all entries and the winner will be announced on Sunday, April 22nd.

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. CONGRATS TO OUR WINNER: ANNE, FROM VICTORIA, B.C.

Good luck!

Images courtesy of BuyCanadian First members

Did you know that it has been 40 years since the first Earth Day was initiated in the United States in 1970!? It is celebrated worldwide every April 22 and brings attention to crucial environmental causes and issues. In 1990, Canada became part of the first International Earth Day.

I don't have to tell you that Earth Day and its principles should be, and need to be, celebrated every day! You can participate and make your contributions very personal by practicing simple, common sense ways to conserve, reuse and recycle around your home and your community, on a daily basis. Even something seemingly as small as buying Canadian first as often as possible, can make a huge impact, for the better, on the environment!

If your New Year's resolution to clear your personal environment of clutter has run out of steam, maybe Earth Day can help you get your Spring-cleaning mojo back! Instead of taking things to the dump, try Kijiji.ca, a fantastic place to post free ads. You can give your stuff away or sell it, locally or world-wide. Craigslist.ca can also help you get rid of items that you don't want in an environmentally friendly way.

Call your town hall or City Services for larger items that you can 't sell or give away. They will either pick it up on a certain day or tell you the best way to dispose of your item. The same goes for your hazardous waste.  Your city will be able to give you all the information that you need to dispose of unsafe items safely.

Your local newspaper will usually have a yardsale kit that you can purchase for a low price and that delivers signs to post, a handy yard sale checklist and a listing in their weekly yard sale column.

Try organizing a gently used clothing swap with your friends or neighbours. It can be for children's clothing or grown-up clothing for yourselves. You can also do this with craft supplies, fabrics, books or toys! Ride your bike to the swap!

Consider contacting the Canadian Diabetes Society . They will come to you, pick up your good used clothing and resell it at Value Village stores.

Top 10 actions to reduce your impact on the environment:

1) Smart Shopping

• “Buy what you need, not what you want”
• Consider renting and borrowing things that are seldom needed
• Buy used items from garage sales and second-hand stores

2) Simple Savers

• Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact  fluorescent bulbs
• Use aerators on faucets and shower heads
• Weatherstrip windows and doors

3) Transportation Alternatives

• Walk, cycle, car pool and use public transportation
• When driving, reduce idling and maintain correct tire pressure
• Consider car sharing programs or renting

4) Food Choices

• Choose local and organic foods that are in season,  and support local food producers
• Eat less meat

5) Washing and Drying

• Wash full loads of clothes in cold water and hang to air dry

6) Heating and cooling

• For summer air conditioning, set your thermostat to 24°C or 25°C
• For winter heating, set your thermostat to 19°C or 20°C
• Install ceiling fans and programmable thermostats

7) Close to Home

• Vacation, travel and work as close to home as possible

8) Bathroom Basics

• Take short showers instead of baths
• Close water taps while brushing your teeth

9) Careful Cleaning

• Choose natural, non-toxic cleaning products
• Make natural cleaners with ingredients like vinegar, baking soda and water

10) Don’t Discard

• Donate, reuse and recycle items before throwing them into the trash
• Harmful materials like chemicals, batteries, electronics, etc.  should be taken to local hazardous waste depots or recyclers

Are you doing anything special to celebrate Earth Day's 40th anniversary this year?

Image sources: Earth Day Canada, Kijiji, BuyCanadianFirst.ca

Congratulations to Randy Berg who has won the second of three autographed copies of Jeff's book. Read Part 2 of this series and his comment here. Dont forget to read Part 1 if you haven't. You too win a copy! All you have to do to be eligible is leave a comment on this post, sharing your thoughts about this issue: If you are concerned or encouraged, agree or disagree, etc. We will then randomly select a winner and send the copy. The deadline for Part 3 (this post) is next Sunday, August 30th). Hurry up though: This is the last one we are giving away!

Isabelle: It's a pretty amazing concept and it's something I hope our politicians have the guts to handle.

Jeff: Don't worry about the politicians. When oil is $ 7.00 a gallon at the pump, people will know exactly what to do. They will send the right message to the politicians. For example, I don't know why we're spending billions of dollars to pro-up the auto-industry that's due to obsolescence by triple-digit oil prices. We should be investing billions in public transit instead of putting more cars on roads.

Isabelle: If Europe can do it, we can do it, right?

Jeff: Exactly. But here's the difference. In Europe, they've already been paying those prices for the last 10 years. When we start paying those prices, we'll become European. It's all about price. When gas is $ 7.00 a gallon, people won't have to buy my book. They'll know exactly what to do.

Isabelle: Can you tell me more about the concept of Carbon tariff on imports?

Jeff: I'm just saying this: if we're going to close coal plants and pay 3 times as much for our electricity...Now I know in Montreal you're blessed with hydro-electric power but that's not the way it is for most people in North-America outside of Quebec and Manitoba who have hydro-electric. It's coal plant or gas. California doesn't allow coal plants, so their power prices are 3 times as much as Texas. But if we are going to, all of a sudden, shut coal plants around North-America and pay 3 times as much for our electricity and then find out that China is building 800 coal plants, that does not make a whole lot of sense. So what I'm saying is we can't stop China from building coal plants, but what we can do is say : "if your steel factory gets its power from coal, from dirty power, we're going to charge you a tariff so that you pay the same price for your carbon emissions as our steel producers pay for their carbon emissions. In other words, you don't gain any economic advantage by using dirty power.

Isabelle: And what are the chances that someone will stand up to China and say that?

Jeff: The chances are excellent once we start paying 3 times more for our own power to close a coal plant. Because there's no point us making economic sacrifices for the environment if they're just going to be building coal plants like mad. Again, we can't tell them what to do, but what we can do is make sure they gain no economic advantage when they trade with us by using dirty power.

Isabelle: That would certainly fix 2 problems at once: the environmental one and the unfair trade that's going on.

Jeff: Exactly. And I think that's coming. There are some big changes and some big challenges but you know, it's not all doom and gloom. At as I say at the end of the book, in many respects, the new small world around the corner may be a whole lot more livable than the big one we're about to leave behind.

Isabelle: As a parent, I must tell you that I hope you are right. And in the meantime, I'm getting myself a ZENN Car!

Jeff: Now that makes sense! That's why I say: the key is not about the Bank of Canada, the Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister of Canada or the Premier of Quebec. It's not about those guys. It's about you and me and the decisions we make everyday in our lives.

Isabelle: And I think that's the most uplifting message of your entire book. Thank you very much for writing it, and thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it

Jeff: Thank you and best of luck with your website!

Tell us what you think about Jeff's theory by next Sunday, August 30th. We will then randomly select a FINAL winner who will receive an autographed copy of  "Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller."

Image source: China Digital Times

Congratulations to Kristy Smith who has won the first of three autographed copies of Jeff's book. Read Part 1 of this series and her comment here. You can win a copy too! All you have to do to be eligible is leave a comment on this post, sharing your thoughts about this issue: If you are concerned or encouraged, agree or disagree, etc. We will then randomly select a winner and send the copy. The deadline for Part 2 (this post) is next Sunday, August 23rd).

Isabelle: Do you think that such a rapid change will cause civil unrest?

Jeff: Whether is causes civil unrest or doesn't, we will have to change nevertheless. I'm quite confident that people will change. I believe that people will respond to prices. We're going to have to change our diets. We're not going to be able to eat avocadoes in February in Toronto because the cost of flying them in from Southern California or Mexico is going to make that avocado too expensive. But we'll end up eating more local produce and that means that we'll have to restore land back to farm land.

Isabelle: It also means that in Canada we're going to be eating a lot of potatoes!

Jeff: We'll eat potatoes, we'll eat corn. I'll tell you something, when I was a kid growing up in the sixties in Toronto, there were no fresh blueberries and raspberries in January, there were no avocadoes and I survived. I'm sure others will too. People will change their minds because at the end of the day, people will have no choice.

There are people who believe that we should go back to local because it cuts down on the carbon trail, and there are people who believe that we should go back to local because it will put us more in touch with our environment, and that's all fine. But I'm saying, even if you don't believe that, you're still going back to local because the whole model of a global economy doesn't work on triple-digit oil prices.

Isabelle: This is the best news I've heard in many, many months. Because what we do here at Buy Canadian First is help Canadians find goods made in Canada.

Jeff: Well, this is right up your alley because you're going to find more and more made in Canada. Of course, this is every bit as true in China as it is in Canada. Distance costs money for everybody. But in the Canadian economy that I see in the future, more and more things we consume will be made in this country.

Isabelle: That is certainly welcome news for a lot of our manufacturing members here who are struggling!

 Jeff: I think the big surprise will be that triple-digit oil prices are going to breathe new life into our rust belt. And it's going to lead to more farms, as well.

Isabelle: That's an interesting subject, because suburbia is replacing farmland almost overnight in many parts of the country. That's certainly the case here in Montreal.

Jeff: Those houses will be abandoned. And what we'll see is farm land re-claim those sub-divisions. And not in 20 years. In 4 to 5 years. In 4 to 5 years, you're going to see land starting to be reconverted back to agricultural use. And that will be as a result of soaring food prices and plunging suburban real-estate prices.

Stay tuned for more good news for Canadian manufacturers in Part 3!

In the meantime, tell us what you think about Jeff's theory by next Sunday, August 23rd. We will then randomly select a winner who will receive an autographed copy of  "Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller."

Image source: Flickr Creative Commons: Dan Zen

Did you get a chance to read Jeff Rubin's book: "Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller: oil and the end of globalization"? If not, you should run out and get it today. It's a great read. His book has been on Maclean's Best Seller non-fiction list for 11 weeks now!

Jeff was the Chief Economist at CIBC World Markets for almost 20 years. He was one of the first economists to accurately predict soaring oil prices back in 2000 and is now one of the world's most sought-after energy experts. He's a true Canadian with amazing vision!

I had the pleasure of spending some time on the phone with Jeff a little while back to discuss his book. I will share our conversation in a series of 3 blog posts, starting with this one.

We are also giving away 3 autographed books, one for each part of the series. All you have to do to be eligible is leave a comment, sharing your thoughts about this issue: If you are concerned or encouraged, agree or disagree, etc. We will randomly select a winner and send you your copy. The deadline for part 1 (this post) is next Sunday, August 16th). 

Isabelle: Your book is about how rising oil prices are about to transform our way of life, into something completely different. Something closer to what our grandparents probably lived...

Jeff: That's pretty accurate. We are going to see even higher oil prices, and at the end of the day there's not a whole lot we can do to prevent that. However, there is a lot we can do to make sure that when we see these higher oil prices, they don't have the same kind of devastating impact that they've had on our economy and our lives in the past. And that's about making changes in the way we live, and changes in the way we organize our economy so that we end up using less energy and in particular less oil.

And the single most important thing that we're going to do is go back to the idea of a local economy as opposed to a global economy. A global economy is where we produce something at one end of the world and sell it at another end of the world. But no matter what mode of transport we use (air, boat, train, truck) we're all burning oil. And as oil gets more expensive, distance starts to cost money. It doesn't matter if the wage rate is a lot cheaper in China, because in everything from steel to food the cost of moving things is going to be more important than the difference in the wage rate.

So a lot of things we thought were gone forever, like farms and steel mills, are soon going to be coming back because it's not going to be economic to buy our food or buy our steel from China. At the same time, everything that we now will make for ourselves will cost us a lot more money than we're used to. So we'll get back a lot of high-paying manufacturing jobs, but we'll be able to buy less with our wages because things will cost more.

We will tend to live more in the cities then in the suburbs because we won't be able to afford to commute 40 miles back and forth to work. And as people leave the suburbs, and food prices continue to rise, then ultimately many of those sub-divisions will be returned to the farm lands that they were 30 or 40 years ago.

Isabelle: What is the timeline on that?

Jeff: I think we will see triple digit oil prices again within 12 months. And when we do, I think we're going to start seeing some of these things happen very, very quickly. Because these things are not going to happen because people necessarily chose to live their lives this way, these things are going to happen because the economic reality of triple-digit oil prices are going to leave people with no choice but to change their way of living.

Stay tuned for Part 2...

In the meantime, tell us what you think about Jeff's theory by next Sunday, August 16th. We will then randomly select a winner who will receive an autographed copy of  "Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller."

Earth Day was April 22 and was first established in the United States in 1970 marking the environmental movement. Today 6 million Canadians along with billions of people from 141 countries celebrate Earth Day. Earth Day is not just a day, but a way of life and this year I am going to use it to make some ‘Eco-lutions'. I can't think of a better time to start, with 2 young children in the house, I can promote good green habits and an earth-smart attitude. There is so much information about being eco friendly that it can seem hard to know where to start. Don't give up, small steps lead to giant leaps, one person can make a difference, YOU can make a difference. Here are some Eco-lutions you can adopt today!

1. Become a vegetarian - If you aren't already then give it a shot, at least for  a couple meals a week. Meat production is inefficient and energy consuming. For every 1 Kg of beef 6-7 Kg of grain has been used. Not to mention all the time and energy used to harvest the grain. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have estimated that livestock are responsible for 18% of greenhouse gases which is more than the estimated global transportation sector (14%). Remember, it's just as important to buy local and (if you can) buy organic. Don't be worried though. Cooking vegetarian or vegan is easier than you might think! There are tons of recipes available online. A sure bet is the 100 Mile Challenge reality show now airing on the Food Network Canada.
   
2. Change your light bulbs - Regular bulbs may be less expensive at the store but give off 90% of their energy as heat. An average 60 watt light bulb lasting an average of 8,000 hours will use about 480 kWh, at an average of 11.64 cents a kWh, your light bulb will cost you about $55.00 to use. Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFL) use 75% less energy than a regular bulb and last longer. In comparison, a 13 watt CFL bulb lasting the same time will use about 104 kWh, at the same price of 11.64 cents, your  cost will only be about $12.00. Not only are you saving energy but money, lots and lots of money every year. How many light bulbs do you have in your house? There is one noteworthy tidbit about the CFL bulbs: They do contain a small amount of mercury. Since the mercury is encased within the bulb, there is no risk to us. The mercury cannot escape, but like batteries, CFL bulbs should be disposed of properly. for more information, read this Energy Star fact sheet on the CFL.
3. Bring your own bag shopping - Get yourself into the habit of bringing your own bags for shopping trips. These bags are not only stronger but have less of an environmental impact than their disposable paper and plastic cousins. Stores usually have them available for purchase. Superstore has launched their new campaign to push the use of cloth reusable bags. They hope that raising the price of the disposable plastic bags and promoting cloth ones will divert 1 billion bags from ending up in landfills by years end. If you are not keen on the store brand cloth bags you can buy them from local artisans in stylish designs. Buy Canadian First member Betty Bags has several cute styles of shopping bags including: The Sally Shopper and The Patsy Pocket Pac. Both styles fold up into a convenient size for your purse or pocket, never be without your shopping bags again. You can find a retailer near you here.
4. Travel right - Walk, cycle, take a bus and car pool to reduce your carbon foot print and when you travel, try the train. Trains are popular in Europe but have been grossly overlooked here in North America. A train produces less greenhouse emissions per passenger kilometer than an airplane and is 25% safer than cars. Try Via Rail. They have some great rates a special offers page you can browse.
5. Finally Read, Learn, Act and tell everyone to join you!
   

Did you know that Canadian caribou and boreal forest birds are in danger?
Pollinator numbers are on the decline, insects like bees and butterflies are at risk! These issues and more, like our oceans, need our attention. Find a cause that strikes a chord in you and fight for it!

Remember that your one voice, letter or action will make a difference, the world is changed one person at a time. What are your Eco-lutions this year?