Some thoughts on thrift shopping cross-country

The most significant difference in thrift shopping east of BC is that there were no sales taxes charged in most non-profit thrift shops.  Perhaps that's a benefit of HST wherever the province chooses not to charge ales tax.


Québec

Thrift shop are abundant in Québec, most affiliated with a parish church or with the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.  However, many are only open a day or two a week, or even a month!  Municipal governments promote recycling and community inclusion for the less-employable so there are also these shops.  Municipalities and churches that do not have thrift shops may have a flea market in the spring.

Ontario

As expected, the province has many thrift shops for all causes.  The Catholic church isn't as significant a presence as in Québec, as are commuinty and mutual aid thrift shops.

Manitoba

Winnipeg abounds in thrift shops.  In addition, there are MCCs in many towns and villages. Some ridiculously small.  We didn't have the time to visit more than a handful in Winnipeg.  Portage La Prairie's 3 shops were conveniently located only  few hundred metres from each other.

Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan proved to be a hard place to thrift shop.  Perhaps people are too thrifty. Regina but the city only has less than half a dozen thrift shops.  We also made stops in Swift Current and Moose Jaw which only had a couple each.

Alberta

Calgary has a whole host of shops but most were off the Trans-Canada so we didn't visit more than a small handful.  Surprisingly, Banff has one at a United Church.  We also visited a few in Medicine Hat.  Too small a sample t make a judgement.

Sunday thrift shopping in Nanaimo

With enough dedicated volunteers, the Nanaimo Hospice society has expanded opening hours of the southern/Bowen Road location to include Sundays (10-16) and until 1930 on Fridays.

 https://www.facebook.com/NanaimoThrift/

Golden and Sicamous

The cross-country RV trip gave us the opportunity to at least verify the existence - continuing or otherwise - of a few thrift shops.

Golden

As small as the town apparently is, it supports two thrift shops on 9th Street South on either side of 10th Avenue.

The first shop - on the east side of 10th - is the Bargain Basement located in the basement of St Andrew's United Church.  Unfortunately, it was closed as the staff seemed to have been overwhelmed and needed time to sort things out.

The other, on the west side, is the thrift shop of St Paul's Anglican church behind Abbeyfield (as it is located in the rear of the Abbeyfield care home).  It's a small shop with a smattering of everything.

We stopped by the Sicamous United Church thrift shop even though it was closed.  They're trusting enough to leave inventory outside over the weekend.

We didn't stop in Revelstoke to check on the town's sole remaining thrift shop