08/27/2026
There has been a lot of discussion lately about buying Canadian, supporting Canadian businesses, and keeping manufacturing here.
Canada is home to world class ingenuity, everything from engineering to art.. the architecture shaping our skylines down to the simple parts of daily life. It’s original. It’s home.
A lot of amazing ideas come to life from the smallest of teams. A lot of those amazing ideas can ONLY come to life from the smallest of teams. Without a board room, prior decision debt, or the burden of prior intuitional process.
If we want more things designed and made here, the people doing that work have to be able to make a living doing it.
Buy a pedal from your local tinkerer.
Buy a pickup from your local tinkerer.
Keep it in the community; it takes a neighbourhood to raise a child.
Canadian-made will not always be the cheapest option. It simply can’t be. It simply can’t be, a spreadsheet doesn’t care about the person behind the numbers.
Buy Canadian when you can.
Value Canadian labour when you do.
My personal side of this is below.
🇨🇦
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Contriver Guitars is one person. Brett Bailey.
I grew up in Caledonia, I attended The Canadian School of Lutherie in the summer of 2015, attended classes in AutoCAD 2016, and have been researching and practicing Lutherie in Hamilton, Ontario, be it working for others or for myself.
There isn’t a corporation behind the name absorbing discounts or a marketing department paying for advertising. At this scale, discounts come out of my own labour, and for a one person shop, those numbers aren’t abstract, eventually you’re measuring them in groceries.
I’ve had some great relationships over the years, but I’ve also learned that there has to be a limit to what a one person business can reasonably absorb in the name of marketing.
I’m not accepting new artist arrangements for the foreseeable future, and I’m moving away from that model.
This is simply part of the reality of small-scale manufacturing in Canada.
Buy Canadian when you can.
Value Canadian labour when you do.
Thank you. 🇨🇦
- Brett Bailey
