On a personal note.... I've boycotted Made in China/Tiwaan/Korea products for a number of years. My reasons were simple. First I've always been taught to buy Canadian made products first, US second.... cuz you are our neighbour.. Second, as a Native North American artist my community has been seriously impacted with Made in China reproductions of our traditional art and craft products. It impacts our ability to sell to tourist shops who can get the same products cheaper from China. Some of our own artists fall into the trap too. They sell carvings to someone for next to nothing only to see it taken to China or somewhere else off-shore to have a mold made and masses manufactured for the tourism markets.

We have the Winter Olympics coming our way in 2010 and we are fighting to have some regulations and protection put around this issue. The government is silent and the shop owners are deaf to our concerns. We are now taking it to consumers with information and marketing materials to raise awareness and hopeful stir up a consciousness for respecting the source of the art. Besides the artists the people who get robbed are the foreign tourists. The Europeans who come to experience something of our culture only to return home with rip-off carvings and beadwork.

I design clothes and home decorating accessories. I can't compete with the large Canadian companies who rip off our art and designs and mass produce them offshore. My market is narrowed to a very high end market that will pay the true cost of authenitic native design work.

I guess that explains a little bit of where my perspective is coming from. Like I said.... the tip of the iceberg. It's a very complex issue that is unravelling all around us. Greed would seem to be the dominating value that we are attempting to face down.