Canadians have been bracing for a trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump for months—and this week, it might actually kick into high gear. Washington has already imposed 25-percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, and is expected to add auto parts to the list as early as April 3. These acts are having devastating effects on Canada’s economy—especially Canadian entrepreneurs.
Many domestic business owners are pivoting. Some are focusing more on the Canadian market. Others are looking to expand in Europe and Australia. At least one Jewish business owner in Quebec moved his product assembly to Vermont, helping him keep his Canadian factory open.
On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we check in with two Canadian Jewish business owners, who give us their perspective on the trade war. Noah Tepperman is the co-owner of Tepperman’s, a furniture and appliance retail chain headquarted in Windsor, Ont., celebrating its centennial this month; and Michael Wiesel joins from Knowlton, Quebec to explain how he’s trying to save his DIY craft kit business, Kiss Naturals, which relies on U.S. customers for 80 percent of its business.
Transcript
Transcripts are AI-generated and may contain errors.
Ellin Bessner: That’s what it sounded like a month ago when a local television morning show did a live broadcast from the Ancaster, Ontario branch of Tepperman’s. The family-owned chain of home furnishing stores is celebrating its 100th anniversary, founded in 1925 by Nate Tepperman, a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine who arrived in Windsor and started selling rugs there door to door. Today, his son and grandchildren run the show with 550 employees. Seven big box stores in southwestern Ontario, the original one in Windsor, and in London, St. Catharines, Ancaster, Chatham, Sarnia, and Kitchener, where you will also find major car manufacturing plants like Ford and General Motors and Stellantis near all seven of the Tepperman stores. So despite the cake and the dignitaries and special new catalogue published just for the occasion, you could say that Tepperman’s anniversary festivities got a bit spoiled by US President Donald Trump and his new trade war with Canada. The uncertainty of on-again, off-again tariffs since January is hampering their business decisions. Then 25% tariffs on exported Canadian steel and aluminium now in effect. And later this week, more tariffs are expected, but this time on cars produced in Canada imported into the United States, which is where most of Canada’s cars are sold. An estimated half a million Canadians work in auto manufacturing, directly or indirectly, and carmakers are already predicting catastrophes like slowdowns, production cuts, layoffs, all a huge worry for the Teppermans, who know that unemployed people don’t buy new furniture, TVs, kitchen appliances or backyard barbecues, even though the Canadian government has promised subsidies to help laid-off workers.
Noah Tepperman: We are concerned, you know, we know that people will be very cautious with how they’re spending because they don’t know what to expect. But we are certainly concerned that it will deeply affect employment and all of the implications that that brings with it. And that’s a very, very broad set of implications.
Ellin Bessner: I’m Ellin Bessner and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Monday, March 31, 2025. Welcome to The CJN Daily, a podcast of the Canadian Jewish News, and made possible in part thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.
The trade war launched by Donald Trump in January couldn’t come at a worse time for Canadian businesses large and small, many just starting to recover from the economic downturn during the COVID pandemic, and inflation. Now, with tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.S,. and Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on products imported from the U.S., it’s another challenge on top of all the problems. And while giants like the Hudson’s Bay Company, which blamed the trade war this week for putting the final nail in the iconic department store’s coffin, smaller Canadian Jewish-owned businesses are doing what they can to confront the threat. On today’s episode, we’ll talk to two Canadian business owners. Later, you’ll hear from Michael Wiesel of Quebec, who sells craft kits mostly to American toy stores. But first, I’m joined by Noah Tepperman. He’s the grandson of the founder and co-owner of his family’s 100-year-old furniture and appliance chain.
Noah Tepperman: Hi, Ellin. Thanks for having me.
Ellin Bessner: Well, it’s good to see you. This is your Era’s Tour.
Noah Tepperman: For us we all know it really is an era for the…It really is. And yesterday, I have to say yesterday was a particularly special day amongst special days because it also happened to be the 55th yahrzeit of my grandfather, Nate Tepperman. And, you know, to have that during this moment in time, it is really, really special.
Ellin Bessner: Your company obviously could not have survived if you ignored what was going on in the world and just kept your head in the sand. Would you be able to tell us a bit about how Tepperman’s prepared and retooled and pivoted in order to survive what’s happening?
Noah Tepperman: Absolutely. So, you know, we have really been paying very close attention to the points of origin of our products for quite some time now for a combination of different reasons, right? You know, buying Canadian, for example, is not something newly important to folks here. You know, in Ontario, there’s always been a large sector of our market for whom having Canadian options has really been important. So we’ve been looking at that certainly through COVID.
And with some of the things that are going on in China, for example, with the cultural genocide of the Uyghur people, the use of what you might describe as slave labour in some manufacturing processes, it’s been very, very important for us to really get a sense of from the products that we import, where are they coming from? What factories are they coming from, what manufacturing processes are being used? So looking at those kinds of things for different reasons has been important to us.
As the tariffs really started to come up in a specific way, you know a number of weeks ago as a team, we had very real conversations saying “We need to know exactly what our liability, what our exposure is to the various risks.” So our staff did a very intense analysis, only to sort of wake up a day and a half later and find out that, you know, the tariffs had been delayed. One of the members of our team said to me, “I feel like it was a wasted exercise.” And I said, it’s absolutely not a wasted exercise. You know, we will be operating with a Trump presidency for four years. And one thing you know about Trump is that he likes to keep everybody on his toes in a way that, on the other end of it often feels like you’re just living through chaos. I said, this kind of analysis, this kind of experience, is something that we are likely to have to go through more than once. So at the very least, this is good practice. But I think it’s also more than that because this has just been delayed. He has not taken this off the table, so we don’t know what the next step is. And so I think at this point, we’ve certainly would prefer to be feeling that it was time that was wasted, but we’ll have to see.
Ellin Bessner: Tell us a bit about what the impacts in general are on the company.
Noah Tepperman: So from an exposure perspective, there’s a lot of variation by product category for us. So take appliances, for example. At this point in time, there’s very little that’s actually manufactured in Canada in terms of things like refrigerators and freezers.
Ellin Bessner: They all come from Mexico.
Noah Tepperman: Yeah, that’s right. But there are things that still come from the United States. So, for example, looking at one of our brands, Electrolux, things like their ranges are one of the products that is more heavily manufactured in the United States. And then looking throughout the rest of their product line, it really depends on select models and SKUs within the line. It’s what we sort of refer to as a North American brand.
You look at furniture products, I think our calculation is that approximately 10% of the furniture items that we carry are manufactured in the United States. We’ve got about 25% of things that are manufactured here in Canada. And I’m talking about a real range of products, right? So that includes mattresses, it includes occasional chairs, from recliners, sofas, case pieces, dining rooms, dinettes, bookshelves, bookcases, chest of drawers, the range of it. And the rest of it is from a range of other locations. So that would include in the mix things like China, Mexico, Vietnam, you know, maybe Malaysia, etc. It really depends on the moment in time.
Ellin Bessner: Let’s talk about the tariffs on imports of Canadian stuff into the United States. The main thing is steel and the big ones, right? And energy. But you guys are talking about household goods and appliances. So you don’t sell into the United States, right? You just buy from the United States.
Noah Tepperman: Sure. Where some of this potentially impacts us is what I would call the indirect impacts of the tariffs. Let’s say some of the goods that we have been bringing into our stores from the United States, some of the parts or materials, may be coming from China. So there’s an element of tariff there. Then if we were bringing it into Canada or for something we would continue to bring into Canada, there’d be an additional tariff there. There’s a nested impact.
If you look at our upholstery manufacturers, for example, of the products that are Canadian-made, a good chunk of those are coming from the Toronto area. The upholstery, the actual fabrics they are using, they’re also importing those materials from a range of sources, some of which include the United States. So for whatever they may have on order, if they’ve got something that is about to ship that is not something they’re able to cancel, or if the cancellation of an order has a penalty on it that is perhaps greater than what the tariff would be, they’re going to follow through on an order like that. So you’ve got a nested impact that will likely have some kind of an impact on costs somewhere along the line.
The question is really, how that works. Is that something that’s going to be impacting us, or is that something that the suppliers are going to just sort of eat? And a lot of that is currently very much in a wait-and-see kind of attitude. You know, it’s clear that there is a very strong sentiment here in Canada. People are very angry and people are frankly offended with this strategy from the President of the United States.
Ellin Bessner: Okay, so there are tariffs, but then Canadians are going to impose their own on everything going south. Again, how does that impact you?
Noah Tepperman: Yeah, what are the larger economic impacts here in Ontario and in Canada? You know, there is more than likely going to be an inflationary impact, and I think it’s not exactly an exaggeration or a surprise that many folks, probably everybody across Canada was happy to see, at the tail end of 2024, to see inflationary pressures seeming to be trending in the right direction. That’s all out the window. Then you start to think about the impact or the potential impact, but the likely impact, I guess, on industries. You know, you look at auto manufacturing, which is such a big component of our Ontario manufacturing base throughout the province, with the direct manufacturing and the probably countless number of tool and die feeder plants. What’s the impact going to be there? Not just on those businesses’ quarterly revenues, but on their employment. Because that’s where the rubber really will start to hit the road for us. And looking at employment, looking at employment in areas like auto manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, for example, we are deeply, deeply worried.
Ellin Bessner: These are your customers who buy furniture for their new homes or their expanding homes. You’re worried about layoffs.
Noah Tepperman: It is about being able to simply do business in the markets where we currently exist. Throughout the province, there are a lot of jobs that directly and indirectly rely on industries like auto manufacturing and pharmaceutical manufacturing, right? Because you obviously have the issues of direct employment, but those people are also customers of other businesses like ours.
You know, when you are in retail, the majority of your world is outside of your control. We have faced all kinds of pressures over a hundred years. And thinking about my parents’ remarks at our kickoff event this morning, our business was founded in 1925. I say founded. It was a very humble beginning. It was my grandfather literally going door to door. He didn’t yet have a bicycle, he didn’t yet have a truck. He had a little shop, but it wasn’t a store. It was his desk, filing system, and warehouse. And it was probably slightly smaller than the hotel room I’m sitting in right now. So not necessarily a robust time period to start.
During the Second World War, when so much of Canadian manufacturing was really being geared towards wartime production, there was an imposed quota system on furniture manufacturers. .But we made it through the Depression, and we made it through the Second World War. And we made it through 1979, 1980, and 1981 when you were looking at 18, 19, and 20% interest rates. You know, we made it through 2008, 2009, 2010, and we absolutely have made it through the COVID period. You deal with what’s in front of you.
You do whatever it takes based on the foundation of our business values, taking care of our staff, supporting our staff so that they can take great care of our customers, and taking care of each other, doing business the Tepperman’s way. When my brother and I, a decade ago, were working on our first 10-year vision, one of the things I said to him, which really became a part of it, is what we do isn’t unique, but the way we do it, is. And our commitment to our customers and commitment to our communities, frankly, we do it because it matters to us. And in moments like this, people know that. When things get funded, finance, consumer credit is a really big part of our business, right? And people know that our goal here is to be there for them, not to try and shut them down and send them to third-party collections or repossess furniture. That’s the last thing we want to do.
We want to support them. We’re committed to the relationships with our customers, and our consistent approach with customers during good times and especially during challenging times reflects that.
There’s also this element, obviously, that this is really crummy. How’s that for the understatement of the day? But I think the thing that we really need to look at and work through individually, in small groups, as families, is that we have one choice here, and that’s to move forward. And here in Canada, we should move forward. As Canadians, you know, one of the things that I am really actually appreciative about these tariffs is that they have been a unifier of Canadians. We have gone through such a divisive period over the last four and a half, you know, almost five years at this point, that to have something that actually is bringing people together, even, with the ugliness of the why, that’s worth something. It’s nice to feel that we could actually start to reclaim the Canadian flag again.
Noah Tepperman: Because the connotation of public uses of Canadian flags over the last few years has been, you know, to some degree, part of the divisiveness. And it is nice to see people from across a range of different demographics, political, and otherwise, coming together and saying, we do not deserve this treatment. And as Canadians, we are going to push back and say, no, we didn’t start this fight. We would like to not have it as a fight, but we will stand up for who we are and what it means to be Canadian. And this is not going to be a pleasant period, but it will be a period. This is not the rest of our future. We don’t know how long, we don’t know how deep. The only thing we know is that we can only move in one direction and that we can only count on each other. We can help each other through this process to try and mitigate some of the worst elements of that. We can’t erase it.
Ellin Bessner: Thank you for that. Because what I’m looking to hear is anything about whether you’re going to expand the terms of credit for your customers, whether you’re going to get bigger loans, I don’t know from your banks or your…
Noah Tepperman: When you’re dealing with the kind of uncertainty that we were dealing with, where you literally don’t know if tariffs are going to be delayed again or not, it’s really hard to actually put very specific plans in place. As this boycott of American goods continues. As the importing of American goods because of the tariffs becomes prohibitive, you know, could that have an impact over the next six months on domestic manufacturing? Yes. Maybe six months is too short a period for that, but there could be opportunities, you know, for what you call sort of the reshoring of things.
Michael Wiesel: Hey, everyone, just wanted to show you what’s happening with our new Kiss Naturals line. We’re changing to this very, very cool magnetic box.
Ellin Bessner: Michael Wiesel founded Kiss Naturals nearly 20 years ago in Knowlton, Quebec, in the Eastern Townships. They’re do-it-yourself craft kits for adults and kids to make their own bath bombs, lip gloss, and soap. Wiesel has a small factory in Cowansville where the kits are put together, labeled Made in Canada, and until recently, 80% of them were shipped to American toy stores. When the trade war started, he started driving his finished kits across the US border and stockpiled them in a warehouse there before shipping them out. Now, though, he’s hoping he’s found an even better way to keep his business afloat and keep the price for his kits reasonable, even if that means the final assembly of the components is now being done in Vermont. Michael Wiesel joins me now.
Michael Wiesel: We’ve been building in the US since 2011 and I just, I know so many of the customers, you know, by first name, and they’re like, I mean, that’s the fun part about, you know, selling to all these small business because everyone is like kind of a little, a little story. You know, when the talk of the tariffs started coming up, it was like, “Holy___ I’m gonna have to pay 25%?” You know, people don’t understand it’s the buyer that pays well. You know, my buyer in Chicago, one of my customers, let’s say Rainbow Resources, wonderful teacher supply store. I can’t add 25% to the bill. They’ll say, “Hey, Mike, you know, that’s nice, but we’ll buy elsewhere! It’s been great.”
You know, it really comes down to: it has to make sense. So I would have to absorb the 25%, which I couldn’t. So I had to really come up with an idea of how to continue supplying my American customers with not adding, huge cost. So then I thought about it. I said, “Well, what if I, because when I import my products, lmy kits sell for, let’s say, $25 each, so $12.50 wholesale. Whenever I import an item for $12.50, I would have to pay 25% or $3.50 in tariffs.
Ellin Bessner: When you export to the States. Can we stop for one second? Maybe we should explain where you get your products. What’s made in Canada and what’s not in your components?
Michael Wiesel: The thing is, when you say that something’s Made in Canada, it means that you’re doing, I think it’s 66% of the process in Canada. A lot of the, the components that we use are from China. Unfortunately, that’s the only place you can buy lip balm tubes and glass beakers and all the stuff that goes in, for really good prices. The ingredients are all sourced locally. Canada and US. We use shea butter a lot. In our kits, we use safflower oil. So those ingredients come from all over. Some are from California, some are from Mexico, some are from India. So we use ingredients from all over the world.
Ellin Bessner: So the stuff that comes out of those boxes and goes across the border–why do you have to pay tariffs on things that you already got from the United States? Because they’re a finished product. The box is finished.
Michael Wiesel: It’s a finished product. Yeah. I’m not a tariff expert, but what you’re saying basically is you’ve already paid some of the tariffs, but we haven’t paid very much in tariffs because what we get from China is very low in tariff. Right? Or none. So we’re paying very little in tariffs as far as that.
Ellin Bessner: Then you, when you heard about these tariffs, that they put blanket tariffs on a lot of things/ What did that do to your business? How much of an impact was.
Michael Wiesel: Potentially could have been a huge impact. But I tend to think ahead. I was taught by my dad, he was a good, an ahead thinker. When I heard about this, I started to stockpile goods in my little–I have a little closet warehouse in Vermont. So basically I had products in the US already. And then I just started to bring more and more in. Like yesterday I brought some more goods, so I just basically started to stockpile. And now moving forward, everything that I sell in the US will be assembled there.
Ellin Bessner: Okay, let’s unpack that. So you came up with a strategy that you think will help you and maybe other businesses to get around this hit that will kill your business otherwise?
Michael Wiesel: Correct. And it’s very simple. So when I bring in my kit, it’s basically $12.50 wholesale. And I’m bringing in and I’m selling it to someone in the US that means the tariff would be on $12.50, the cost of the item. So now by doing it in a little bit of a different way by bringing in components, the items that are in every kit, the safflower oil and the shea butter jars and the tubes, all the little things that go into a craft making kit. When I bring those in separately, it’s not a ready-to-go item. It’s now an item, an ingredient that I can import myself and keep ownership in the U.S. and then the tariff rate will be relative to my cost. So it basically lowers the tariff rate because I’m paying a tariff on a bottle of safflower oil, which cost me let’s say 50 cents, you know, rather than paying on the whole item, which has more value when it’s all added together. The value is far lower. So instead of, let’s say being $12.50, so instead of being 3.50 per unit, it’ll be around 65 cents a unit, which is manageable for me.
Ellin Bessner: So you can eat that without passing it along to your final customer?
Michael Wiesel: Well, that’s it. Because also, the American dollar, you know, is very high. So that helps. And it’s just, you’re working with a better margin.
Ellin Bessner: Isn’t it a lot of paperwork to fill out? Much more if you have to do every single component when you get across.
Michael Wiesel: Oh, it’s funny, I’m working on that right now with this new system. I have my brother-in-law who’s helping me do all this and so I’m going to be bringing my stuff to customs. I hope I get Mr. Custom Officer. He does not like me too much. But we can only hope.
Ellin Bessner: Well, you know them well. Which border crossing do you go to? Stanstead? Or Lacolle?
Michael Wiesel: Richford, just south of Sutton. And everyone knows me at that border crossing. I’ve been doing this for three, four years. But yeah, so it’s just a way of bringing in the items at the tariff, which will be the same, 25%, but on a lower value. It’s completely legit. And then, once the tariff hits, I will bring it in this new way. I already have someone in Vermont trained to assemble all the kits. You know, I’m a very small company, so it’s a little bit easier for me to do than, let’s say, for General Motors.
Ellin Bessner: So did you hire this new person in Vermont to do this?
Michael Wiesel: Kind of cool. He has a little business where he receives and ships out packages just across the border. So, his customers are all Canadians in the Eastern Townships who order stuff in the US that US companies will not ship into Canada. So, the customers go across the border and pay him his fees for picking up the package. A little UPS depot. He’s been shipping my goods for me for about a year or so. So I just went down, and his business is greatly being affected because these customers are all calling him, saying, “Hey, we don’t like what’s going on.” This is really hard on him—the poor guy is getting the brunt of this. And I’m getting wonderful feedback from Americans saying, “Hey, Mike, this is really embarrassing.” They’re really hurt over this. I’m contacting customers every day, and it’s actually been a boon for business since this whole nasty thing started. I’ve started to like Trump less; the love was never there. I’m joking. I just don’t understand it. But since this whole thing started, I switched to Canadian companies as much as I possibly can. I was buying labels and boxes in the US, and I said no, I’m not doing this anymore. Not nice! Not nice!
Ellin Bessner: So back to that. I know that you’re switching to try to do the assembling in the United States to help out when, you know, Mark Carney’s Brookfield Asset Management is in the news. He switched his headquarters and is getting hell and flack for that. Your headquarters remains in Canada, right?
Michael Wiesel: I’m not moving to the…
Ellin Bessner: But you did put the assembly plant across. I know, basically, it’s in a little basement.
Michael Wiesel: And you know what’s funny is that some people don’t really understand. “Oh, so you’re taking away Canadian jobs?” Actually, no. The components I’m making for the US are made by Canadians here, and if I don’t sell in the US, then those components will never be made. So all the stuff that goes into the US actually benefits a Canadian because we’re filling the little bottles and stuff here, and it benefits an American. I love it as a model. You know, in my own little way, we’re working together as people, like an American and a Canadian are trying to save their businesses, working together and benefiting both of us. That’s how I see it.
Ellin Bessner: Great to talk to you.
Michael Wiesel: Take care.
Ellin Bessner: And that’s what Jewish Canada sounds like, fr this episode of The CJN Daily, made possible in part thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.
Are you a Canadian-based business that’s being impacted by the trade war? Why not let us know? We’re at info@The CJN.ca. The show is produced by Zachary Judah Kauffman. The executive producer is Michael Fraiman. The editorial director is Marc Weisblott, and the music is by Dov Beck Levine. Thanks for listening.
Show Notes
Related links
- Hear how this Vancouver kosher grocer prepared to handle expected tariffs on imported U.S. Passover foodstuffs (which have since been exempted) on The CJN Daily.
- Why tariffs might send more Jewish poor to food banks, in The CJN.
Credits
- Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
- Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
- Music: Dov Beck-Levine
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