Dont be so quick to dismiss things made in China. Quality has improved by leaps and bounds over the years. Canadian Tire is doing way more business over seas than ever before right now, but the sourcing process is so rigid, that quality of product sourced from places like China has to be equal to or better than leading national brands in order to be approved. Canadian Tire has seen its defect rate shrink to under 4% over the last few years, so the statistics show that quality is definitely much better today than ever before.
I can only speak for Canadian Tire, because I work on global sourcing for the company, but I am assuming that Walmart has similar standards for anything coming from overseas.
As for the whole going overseas and taking advantage of workers, Canadian Tire also has a process where every vendor has regular inspections by corporate staff to ensure that they meet our standards for working conditions. Any vendor that fails to meet our standards gets dropped and we dont do business with them anymore. Cost is not the only thing we look at when selecting vendors, and some even charge us more for certain things than we would pay to have it made closer to home. Its a big factor, but never a deal breaker.
Just to end this, anyone who thinks they are doing better by buying a product not made in China is only fooling themselves. You are really no better off. Even vendors here in Canada who we deal with buy their parts from China, so there is no way to completely avoid it.
People trash-talk Chinese products in exactly the same way they talked about Japanese products in the 70s or 80s, low quality, cheap, unreliable, before their products dramatically improved and forced GM etc to go bankrupt. Korean cars had the same bad reputation in America (synonymous to low quality) but is already gaining market share and customer confidence. China is on the same track.
It is time Canadians should rethink about how they see others, and stop being stuck with their ridiculous superiority complex. Years ago, can you imagine that companies like Samsung can be such industry leaders and Nortel can just collapse instantly? That RIM will have a hard even surviving? China itself has improved a lot during the past decade in terms of quality and technology and the trend is irreversible. Believe it or not, Chinese companies can already produce a lot of high tech products that Canadians ones are unable to. Are "made in Canada" necessarily better? I am sure many want to believe so, but it hardly is true in many circumstances.
Easy dismissal of others may feel satisfying in the short run, but such arrogance can easily lead to complete failure. You always have to know your competitor's strength and where it is headed, not simply how it is now as if the Earth stops moving.
Additionally, those who are so firmly against cheap Chinese products, go through the stuff in your household, take a look at the plates, foils, folks, glasses, your ceiling lamps, desks, tooth brushes, children's toys, pajamas, everything and let's see how many are made in China vs US/Canada. If you are really so patriotic as you talk, simply stop buying "made in china" - not when it is possible, but all the time, and then I applaud you.
And may I kindly remind you, if the country as we know as China suddenly stops producing everything, you will NOT see the market flooded with Canada/American/Italian products. Not a chance. Poorer countries than China such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and India where labour is even cheaper will waste no time filling in the gap. Products made in the rich world have ZERO chance will meet that demand, simply because low skilled labour is not priced that high in the world in general. So unless you completely shut your door and stop trading with the world, the situation will be exactly the same.
Not buying from China, I am sure out of some narrow-minded/self-righteous/moral highground way of thinking, many think they are noble enough to do that. In reality, it is a losing battle and any such effect is just silly.