Where Exactly is "Local"?

Phrases like "trade war" and "protectionist" and "Buy American!" and "Buy Canadian!" and "international trade agreements" have been flying thick and fast of late--on both sides of the border.

I have no real insight to offer that larger discussion. However, I do wonder what constitutes "buying local."

My stepdaughter owns and operates a jewelry store, Glimmer. (Up here, it's a jewellery store.) She does not make the rings, necklaces, bridal veils, tiaras and other products--she chooses them and sells them. People have hinted (very politely, of course; this is Canada) that she isn't really a "local" store because she's not selling hand-crafted things.

Recently, a pharmacy started a new ad campaign: it's one of two locally owned pharmacies. Outside its storefront, it has hung a "buy local" sign. As is the case in the U.S., where a Walgreens and a CVS occupy opposite corners of most intersections, chain pharmacies have been buying up the pharmacies here. So this local pharmacy owner decided to highlight her local ownership.

Which is great and swell and yahoo to her. But nobody questions her right to call herself "local." She sells many products--drugs, equipment, over-the-counter medications, corn pads, talcum powder, you name it (except fingernail polish)--and nobody asks where they are made. She didn't make them, but that doesn't seem to preclude her from advertising herself as a local business.

So why is it less "local" to buy and sell pins and earrings? What if my stepdaughter made necklaces? What if she used findings and stones from somewhere else--which, realistically, she would pretty much have to do unless she's using locally produced flour to make paste to glue local amethyst crystals onto strings made from wool spun from local sheep--would they still be "more local" than the things she does sell?

Answers to these questions might depend on the reason you're buying local in the first place. If it's to support local residents and the local economy, then Glimmer is as local as the next store. It supports a family that pays taxes, buys food and clothing, and sends kids to school--all in Thunder Bay.

If you're buying local to save the environment, then we in Canada may have a special set of constraints on our purchases. It's often closer to buy something from the U.S. than to buy something from Canada. For example, apples grown in B.C. have to come farther than apples from Wisconsin.

So where, exactly, is "local"? I guess the real message, from politicians on both sides of the border, is to shop there, or wherever, for whatever you can afford to buy.