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Reputation Score© helps organizations build resiliency amidst imminent US-Canada tariffs

Built on a history of peaceful trade, defense and diplomacy, Canada and the United States have shared one of the world’s most interdependent economic relationships since the early 20th century.

A storied united front, the two countries boast the world’s longest undefended border and exchange nearly two billion dollars in goods and services daily.  

In recent weeks, these longstanding bilateral ties have been tested. Unprecedented trade turbulence from the Oval Office, with the threat of tariffs (and temporary reprieves) on Canada and Mexico, have set off a chain of panic across North America. 

While it may feel impossible to plan as an organization amidst evolving timelines, we’ve developed communications and crisis-preparedness strategies, rooted in real-time data, to prepare for what could lie ahead in this climate of economic unrest.  

To better understand the impact of these tensions and inform recommendations, our Data Intelligence team applied the ChangeMakers’ proprietary Reputation Score©, drawing insights from the fall-out around this conflict. Tracking the fluctuation in trends, habits, audience sentiment, and key developments in consumer behaviour, we examined the reputational outlook of key sectors in the three-week window following the initial tariff declarations.  

Here’s what you need to know about the reputational industry shifts, consumer reactions, and key strategies to prepare for what could lay ahead.

Cross-Border Reputation: The Power of Perception 

As expected, both countries experienced a notable dip reputationally following the announcement of tariffs.  

While Reputation Score allows brands, businesses, and executives to track their health and navigate reputation, we used this tool to understand how the threats of tariffs have impacted cross-border reputation from a geotargeted perspective.  

Digital conversations, particularly within pro-Trump communities, have fueled anti-Canada sentiment, while anti-tariff discussions have largely focused on Trump himself rather than offering support for Canada. This demonstrates how trade disputes quickly become emotionally charged, influencing how businesses and brands are perceived. 

Industry Impact: Key Sectors in Focus 

Despite a brief recovery during the 30-day reprieve, several industries have been hit reputationally as a result of the tariffs discourse. In examining the sector-specific impact, actionable strategies can be implemented by businesses within these spaces to mitigate for further risk.  

With heightened consumer anxiety, organizations must be proactive in developing communications and operational strategies that shape their narratives and prepare for potential backlash in an unpredictable policy environment. 

Consumer, Lifestyle & Tourism 

The initial tariff threat, coupled with uncertainty about its duration, has fuelled a surge in “buy local” rhetoric in Canada. Prime Minister Trudeau’s call for domestic vacations spurred a 150% increase in searches related to Canadian vacations. Similarly, Google search data shows a significant spike in “Made in Canada” queries leading up to the tariffs. 

While Canadian consumers may express loyalty to domestic brands, North America’s deeply integrated supply chain makes complete economic independence unrealistic. Businesses should expect continued emotional rhetoric but prepare for practical consumer behavior that blends patriotism with necessity. 

Actionable Strategies:  

  • Establish a clear brand narrative to navigate consumer sentiment. 
  • Scenario plan for potential tariff-related price shifts. 
  • Monitor online discourse and adapt marketing strategies accordingly. 

Agriculture 

Canada and the U.S. have long relied on each other for agricultural trade, but tariffs have sparked discussions about reducing dependence on American imports. February saw a 575% increase in social media mentions of buying Canadian agricultural goods, signalling a shift in public sentiment. 

Political rhetoric around Canada’s supply-managed sectors is also naturally intensifying. Businesses should explore new trade partnerships if possible, while strengthening domestic production. 

Actionable Strategies:  

  • Diversify supply chains when possible, to mitigate reliance on U.S. markets. 
  • Amplify real-world stories about tariff impacts to foster industry advocacy. 
  • Stay attuned to political developments that could shape future trade policies. 

Energy 

Canada’s oil and gas sector, responsible for over 60% of U.S. energy imports, faces a 10% tariff as of February 27, threatening price stability and supply chain reliability. For Canadian oil producers, this would represent a nearly US$7-billion hit to their profit. Negative sentiment around Canadian energy exports has spiked, with unfavourable opinions outpacing positive ones by a ratio of 5.5:1. 

As tariffs exacerbate uncertainty, the sector may see renewed calls for energy diversification, increased domestic investment, and stronger regulatory support for green energy initiatives. 

Actionable Strategies:  

  • Explore alternative energy markets and partnerships, when possible. 
  • Identify champions who can advocate for industry stability. 
  • Align with public sentiment by investing in energy efficiency and sustainability. 

Tech & AI 

Hard tech goods moving across the border would be directly impacted by prospective tariffs, while AI and digital services remain vulnerable to broader geopolitical tensions. The AI arms race is becoming a critical point of cooperation, with both nations keen on outpacing China’s advancements. 

Given the sector’s rapid evolution, businesses must approach AI policy with strategic foresight, ensuring alignment between corporate values and technological adoption. 

Actionable Strategies: 

  • Develop a robust AI policy that integrates security and compliance. 
  • Stay ahead of government regulations that may impact AI and cloud services. 
  • Monitor geopolitical trends to anticipate shifts in the digital economy. 

Automotive & Transportation 

No industry is more vulnerable than North America’s auto sector, where just-in-time supply chains depend on frequent cross-border movement of parts. While tariffs threaten efficiency, public discourse remains surprisingly muted—only 10% of trade-related conversations focus on the auto industry, suggesting that consumers are more concerned with direct consumer goods price increases. 

Actionable Strategies: 

  • Strengthen advocacy efforts to highlight the sector’s economic impact. 
  • Develop contingency plans for potential supply chain disruptions. 
  • Align internal teams across legal, government relations, and communications. 

Preparing for What’s Next 

As the trade pendulum continues to swing and timing remains uncertain, here’s how to stay ahead: 

  1. Anticipate long-term changes: The tariff debate is fluid, but consumer sentiment and economic behavior will have lasting effects. Expect stakeholders to be driven by the emotion of the situation and communicate accordingly. ​ 
  1. Stay agile: The ability to pivot quickly in response to new developments will be crucial for business survival. 
  1. Engage in digital advocacy: The online environment is ripe for brands to take a stance and rally support in a strategic, measured way. Create opportunities for your leaders & advocates to champion industry-wide causes.  

Amidst this volatile time, organizations must be proactive, adaptable, and ready to engage with the evolving trade landscape. Through strategic communications, supply chain diversification, and targeted advocacy, now is the time to take decisive action.   

Kenny Cameron / Senior Account Manager, Data Intelligence

With over five years of experience in public relations and data analytics, Kenny is an expert in reputation risk management and data-driven communications. Leading ChangeMaker’s Data Intelligence team in Canada, Kenny takes a client-focused approach to social listening and analysis that culminates in actionable takeaways to tackle complex communication challenges.

Rachel Cohen / Senior Account Manager,  Reputation Management 

With a passion for relationship-building and storytelling, Rachel is a trusted communicator, supporting clients through effective reputation management, crisis preparedness and brand strategy. Joining ChangeMakers with roots in the social-change space, Rachel thoughtfully advises and trains partners from a cross-border perspective on the evolving communications, as well as media landscapes in both countries.  

Privacy Policy

At ChangeMakers, we are committed to protecting the privacy of visitors to our website: thechangemakers.com (the “Website”). This Privacy Policy outlines our practices regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of your information when you visit our Website.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand how we will treat your information before you start to use our Website or our services, or communicate with us. By using our Website or our services, or by communicating with us, you acknowledge that your Personal Information will be processed in accordance with this Privacy Policy, including any updates and amendments. Your use of our services is also subject to any applicable terms of use, including any terms available at ”Terms of Use“.

We collect the following types of information:

  • Personal Information is information that relates (directly or indirectly) to you. Specifically, we may collect and process, among other things, the following information about you:
  • Personal identifiers, such as your name, address, email address, telephone number.
  • Web use information, such as IP address, website, other unique identifiers associated with you, your computer or other mobile device, your internet or other electronic network activity.
  • Other information voluntarily provided to us by you when contacting us through the Website or responding to calls to action on the Website, e.g., user submissions, subscription requests, requests for further information about our services.
  • Non-Personal Information is information that does not relate to you, such as aggregated, de-identified, or anonymous data. This type of information gives us insights regarding, for example, how visitors use the Website and which sections are of interest. This information is used for our commercial purposes, including to ensure the effectiveness of our Website and email communications, and that marketing efforts continue to appeal to existing and potential clients and collaborators. Additionally, we may collect aggregate or anonymized demographic information while providing services to our clients, such as demographic information about an audience’s particular interests.

Information You Provide

We collect information you voluntarily and manually provide when you use our Website, such as when you purchase or access services or certain content on our Website, sign up for our email list or newsletter, submit a form, send us questions, or interact with us through this Website. Some of the information you manually provide may be personal information, such as your name or email address.

Information from Your Website Browser or Mobile Device
We collect information that is sent to us automatically from your browser or mobile device, such as your IP address, the name of your operating system, the name and version of your browser, date and time of your visit, page(s) you visit and length of time you spent on each page. The information we receive may depend on your browser or device settings. Information received from your browser and mobile device typically is not, in and of itself, personally identifiable. However, we may combine it with other information that does identify you.

Tracking Technologies

Use of Google Analytics

This Website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses cookies to analyze activities when using the Website to improve the navigation, content, and design of the Website. The information generated by the cookies about your use of this site (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of this site, compiling reports on Website activity and providing other services relating to Website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. By using this Website, you consent to the processing of your data by Google as described. For more information on Google Analytics, you can visit Google’s Privacy Policy.

Use of Cookies

This Website uses third-party tracking cookies to monitor Website traffic and user engagement and provide visitors with tailored information upon each visit. Cookies are a common part of many commercial websites that allow small text files to be sent by a website, accepted by a web browser and then placed on your hard drive as recognition for repeat visits to the Website. Every time you visit the website, our servers, through cookies, pixels and/or GIF files, collect basic technical information such as your domain name, the address of the last URL visited prior to clicking through to the Website, and your browser and operating system. You do not need to enable cookies to visit the Website; however, disabling cookies may affect your experience and limit some functionalities of the site. Some cookie files remain on your computer’s hard drive unless and until you manually delete the file.

How We Use and Disclose Your Personal Information

Consent

We may process your Personal Information where we have your consent to do so, such as communicating with you about an event you attended or campaign you were involved in. You have a right to withdraw your consent at any time but doing so may prevent us from providing a service to you or responding to a request that you have made.

To Perform a Contract with You

We may use your Personal Information to perform a contract with you or take steps at your request prior to entering into such a contract. This processing may include providing you with information, products, and services.

Analytic Purposes

We may process your Personal Information where necessary for product development, algorithmic model improvement, and statistical analysis to improve our services and Website experience. For model development and statistical analysis, we make every reasonable effort to use anonymized or de-identified information where possible and have implemented best practices to limit the use of your Personal Information for analytic purposes.

Otherwise Required by Law

We may disclose your Personal Information including information about you or your use of the Website where required by law, including where necessary to protect the vital interests of an individual or to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or lawful governmental request.

Disclosure to Third Parties

We may provide your Personal Information to third-party service providers on an as-needed basis. We require all such third parties to respect the security of your Personal Information and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your Personal Information for their own purposes and only permit them to process your Personal Information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions. In addition to service providers, we may also disclose your Personal Information to the following categories of data recipients where necessary for any of the lawful purposes set out in this Privacy Policy:

  • Marketing and advertising partners
  • Third parties to a business transaction, such as a merger, sale, liquidation, acquisition, reorganization, or other transfer of any of our assets, whether as a going concern or part of a bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding
  • The company or organization you represent upon their request
  • Other third parties at your express direction
  • Law enforcement, regulators, and other parties where required by law

How We Retain Information We Collect1

We store Personal Information for as long as necessary to provide services to you and our clients, to comply with legal obligations, or to administer our services, in each case in accordance with our data retention practices and policy. Because of the nature of developing and refining statistical models, this may involve retaining your information for a period after our underlying contract expires, but where possible, we keep this information in an aggregated, de-identified format.

How We Secure Your Personal Information2

We understand that the security of your Personal Information is extremely important. Accordingly, we use appropriate administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to keep your Personal Information protected from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction, taking into account cost, technology, the risks involved in the processing and the nature of the Personal Information. We implement the following security measures to protect your Personal Information:

  • A firewall to filter inappropriate access to our web server
  • Logging of all web server access, including date/time, IP address, and username (if applicable)
  • Regular backups of our web server
  • SSL encryption for secure data transmission

It is important to keep in mind, however, that no security measures are absolutely effective. Although we will apply appropriate measures to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Information, and any transmission to us is at your own risk.

If you should become aware of any known or suspected incidents of unauthorized access to, use of, or disclosure of any Personal Information, you should report them immediately to the following email address: privacy@thechangemakers.com. We investigate all reported claims of data incidents.

In the unlikely event that Personal Information has been lost, stolen, or potentially compromised, our policy is to alert our users via email no later than three business days of our becoming aware of the event. We will also report such incidents to any required data protection authority. We will work closely with any users affected to determine next steps such as any end-user notifications, needed patches, and how to avoid any similar event in the future.

Links to Other Websites

Our Website may contain links to other websites that we do not control. We are not responsible for any websites that we do not own or operate. We encourage you to carefully review the privacy policies and practices of other websites that you link to from our Website, as we cannot control or be responsible for their privacy practices.

Your Rights

Access, Correct, Restrict or Delete

We respect your rights to your personal information and data. You have the right to access, correct, request restriction or deletion of your information, or request how we use your personal information and data collected, as required by applicable law. Note that we may charge a reasonable fee for actions that you ask us to take with respect to your data. In addition, we reserve the right to first request you provide us with evidence verifying your identity before we take any action. After we verify your identity, you have the right to:

  • Update or change any information you have provided to us. To update or delete Your information, please contact us at privacy@thechangemakers.com;
  • Request that we confirm what data we hold about you, and for what purposes. You also have the right to confirmation of whether we process your data or deliver your data to third-party processors, and for what purposes. We will supply you with copies of your personal data unless doing so would affect the rights and freedoms of others;
  • Change your consent to our use of your information. In such cases, you may not have full access to our Website;
  • Request a digital copy of the data that we hold about you;
  • Request that we gather and transfer your data to another controller, in a commonly used and machine-readable format, unless doing so would cause us an undue burden;
  • Request that we delete all data that we hold about you, and we must delete such data without undue delay. There are exceptions to this right, such as when keeping your data is required by law, is necessary to exercise the right of freedom of expression and information, is required for compliance with a legal obligation, or is necessary for the exercise or defense of legal claims. Such a request may result in limited or no use of our Website;
  • Opt out of receiving future email correspondence from us. You may change your communication settings by contacting us at privacy@thechangemakers.com;
  • Opt out of receiving any third-party marketing communications or having your personal information used for marketing purposes. You may do this by contacting us at privacy@thechangemakers.com;
  • In certain situations, restrict the processing of your data, such as when you contest the accuracy of your data or when you have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. When processing has been restricted, we will continue to store your data but will not pass it on to third-party processors without your consent, or as necessary to comply with legal obligations or protect your rights, our rights, or those of others. In addition, you may opt out of any processing of your data altogether. However, doing so may result in the loss of access to our Website; and
  • Complain to a supervising authority in your jurisdiction if you believe we are misusing your data or have violated any of your rights under this Privacy Policy or applicable law.

If you wish to have any third parties, including those to whom we’ve transmitted your information, delete your information, you will need to contact those third parties directly to do so. Upon request, we will provide a list of all third parties to whom we have transmitted your information.

Complaints

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. To file a complaint with the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, contact the office of the Commissioner at:

Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
2 Bloor St. East, Suite 1400, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8
Tel: 416.326.3333 or 1.800.387.0073
Fax: 416.325.9195
Website: www.ipc.on.ca
Email Address: info@ipc.on.ca

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to update and change this Privacy Policy and will make our best effort to update the date “January 28, 2025” at the top of this page each time we make changes. You can review our most recent changes by visiting this page. By continuing to use our Website, you waive specific notice of, and accept, all changes to our Privacy Policy made from time to time. We encourage you to return to this page each time you access our Website to ensure you have read our most recent Privacy Policy.

How to Contact Us

CONTACT INFORMATION: Please direct all requests, questions or concerns related to this Privacy Policy or your Personal Information to privacy@thechangemakers.com.