Presumably no one moved their operation to pay higher costs, but French's seems to think it can achieve higher sales buy touting its Canadian content. In fact, according to this morning's account in the Star, their ketchup is made in the US, just like Heinz and PC™. All they're promising us is that the tomatoes were grown and turned into paste in Leamington.
The plant there is now owned by Canadians, mostly former workers and managers, who bought it from Heinz when they abandoned ship. So far they say they're making money — partly by paying less than Heinz did — and are expanding. But they only make the paste here and sell it to whomever. Which might very well be Heinz or PC™, as long as their money's good.
So as John Henry and jamestkirk pointed out, it's all about the workers and farmers selling the raw materials and doing the minimal first processing, not patriotism. Kinda like the lumberjacks, roughnecks and miners, we're still not making the stuff, just hauling the resources to the depot where they're shipped away. If you grow tomatoes or make the paste, having the plant stay open is a good thing, and if buying French's helps that's good too. We can even wink at calling it 'Canadian' when it's made in the US.
But if you care about Canadian economic well-being the real story is in that new ownership and its plans, and whether it can succeed in doing more than shipping the mashed tomatoes to plants where even lower-paid workers make the actual product we buy after it's shipped back. When they actually make the end-product in Leamington, that'll be progress, because the real money that grows economies is higher up the food chain.
However, for those who can call heavily sweetened tomato sauce progress, we've made some already.
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PS: Just noticed this is my 17,001th post. About ketchup! Damn that jones! I'm going cold turkey. I've had fun and you guys and girls have been great and taught me much and I will miss you.
But, so long.
