Canada's Counter-Tariffs Take Effect, Hitting Nearly 900 Product Categories

At 12:01 a.m. on September 8, Canada's counter-tariffs on U.S. goods officially came into force, matching Washington's tariffs dollar for dollar. The measures apply 15, 25, and 50 percent duties across roughly 700 to 900 tariff lines, with steel and aluminum duties doubling to 50 percent. Retailers are now working through the practical fallout: food processors and grocers are bracing for shrinkflation risk, and categories like appliances, cosmetics, dairy, clothing, and exercise equipment are all affected. Some grocers, including Empire, say they are pushing back on tariff-related supplier price increases for now rather than passing costs straight through.

Landed costs just changed for anyone importing from the U.S. If you have not already rebuilt pricing models or messaging around the September 8 tariff list, this is the week to do it: expect supplier price conversations and margin pressure through Q4.

Canada Sheds 42,000 Jobs in August, Ending a Four-Month Hiring Streak

Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey, released September 4, showed employment fell by 42,000 in August, well short of economist expectations for a gain of roughly 15,000. It ends a run of 181,000 net new jobs added between April and July. The unemployment rate held steady at 6.4 percent, but only because fewer people were actively searching for work. Losses were concentrated in public administration and business support services, while manufacturing was a surprise bright spot, adding 22,000 jobs even as U.S. tariffs weighed on the sector. StatCan noted the August data only partially captures the impact of the mid-August wave of U.S. tariffs, meaning September's numbers are worth watching closely.

A softening labour market affects both hiring plans and consumer spending confidence heading into the holiday season. Worth factoring into Q4 budget and headcount conversations, and into how cautiously you message discretionary spend.

Instacart Launches Clementine, an AI Grocery Assistant, in Canada and the U.S.

On September 9, Instacart introduced Clementine, an AI-powered shopping assistant now available to most Canadian and U.S. customers through the Instacart app and website. Clementine turns a conversation, recipe, or grocery list, including a photo of a handwritten list, into a ready-to-buy cart, drawing on more than 1.6 billion lifetime orders, a catalogue of over 2 billion items, and real-time inventory signals from nearly 100,000 stores. Instacart also confirmed partnerships with Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google, so a grocery conversation that starts in Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Google's AI Mode can be completed as an Instacart order for delivery or pickup.

This is another sign that conversational AI is becoming a checkout channel, not just a discovery tool. If you sell grocery, CPG, or meal-adjacent products, start thinking about how your catalogue data shows up in AI-assisted carts, not just search results.

Ottawa Launches a $13-Million National AI Literacy Initiative

Federal AI Minister Evan Solomon launched Canada's National AI Literacy Initiative on September 9 in Edmonton, in partnership with the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute. The $13-million program offers free training built around three streams: Essentials for Students, Essentials for Educators, and Essentials for Canadians, aimed at helping people assess AI-generated information, spot bias and misinformation, and use AI tools responsibly. The first course content becomes available September 21, with less than a quarter of Canadians currently reporting any formal AI training.

A more AI-literate customer base and workforce is good news for adoption, but it also means shoppers and staff will be more likely to question AI-generated content and recommendations. Worth building accurate, well-sourced AI-assisted content now.

Temu Deepens Its Local-Seller Push in Canada

Temu is placing growing emphasis on local Canadian sellers, inventory, and fulfillment as parent company PDD Holdings signals a broader shift away from its original cross-border shipping model. Canadian businesses can now sell through Temu using domestically held inventory, with an existing Shopify integration making it easier for merchants to manage Temu listings alongside their own storefronts. PDD has not disclosed specific new Canadian warehousing investments or the scale of domestically fulfilled orders, but executives signalled on a recent earnings call that localization will keep expanding.

A faster-shipping, more locally stocked Temu looks less like a discount import marketplace and more like a direct competitor. If your category overlaps with Temu's core assortment, this is worth watching closely over the next few months.

Nearly 4 in 10 Canadian Shoppers Now Use AI to Shop: Salesforce

New Salesforce research finds that 39 percent of Canadian shoppers have used an AI tool for shopping in the past year, with 11 to 12 percent now starting their shopping journey with AI, up from single digits a year ago. Price comparison and deal hunting are the top use cases, followed by fast research and product recommendations. Separately, 89 percent of Canadian commerce professionals surveyed believe AI and large language models will be essential to product discovery within the next year, though only 30 percent say their customer data is fully unified enough to support it well.

Product visibility inside AI answers now depends heavily on clean, structured, and current catalogue data, not just traditional SEO. If your product data is scattered across systems, unifying it is quickly becoming a discovery and revenue issue, not just an operations one.