Trade your zucchini loaf for my jar of tomatoes? Why some Canadians are turning to bartering again

Cost of Living5:08Trade you a breadmaker for banana bread?

When Samantha Fanning was expecting her second child, the room that would become the baby's nursery needed a major glow-up.

But as a professional photographer and at the time a single mother, Fanning didn't have room in her schedule — or the painting skills required — to transform the space.

"So I traded photography for someone to come in and paint that bedroom," Fanning told Cost of Living. Her painter got some nice new family photos. 

After that, she was hooked on bartering, or the exchange of goods and services without cash.

A friend cut and coloured Fanning's hair in return for a photo shoot.

"One time I did eyelash extensions," she said. "That's something I would never have had money to go and do if not for trading."

Given she also didn't have health benefits back then, it was "invaluable" when she was able to trade photography for massage therapy, said Fanning, who lives in Cochrane, Alta.

Although bartering's roots reach back to ancient times, long before cash and cryptocurrencies, some Canadians are returning to the practice, especially as they grapple with an affordability crisis.

It's happening informally, through local Facebook groups and other grassroots efforts and through the creation of tech platforms that facilitate trades.

The 'informal economy'

Robert Nason, associate professor at McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management, said the development isn't surprising.

"In some ways, some parts of our economy have become overly financialized. We need to put a number on everything. And I think this movement is a bit of a reaction against that."

While the value of goods and services exchanged this way is not known — nobody keeps track every time a couple of neighbours trade a zucchini loaf for a jar of tomatoes — bartering is considered part of the wider informal economy, said Nason. 

Economists can make educated estimates of what portion of a country's gross domestic product (GDP) is represented by the informal economy, he said.

In lower-income countries where more people live a subsistence lifestyle — trading things they've grown or made, or selling them at local markets, for example — the informal economy represents a bigger piece of the pie. 

"I do research in South Africa, for instance, and the informal economy represents something like 30 per cent of GDP," he said. 

Here in Canada, Statistics Canada pegs that number at around 2.8 per cent of GDP, said Nason.

Those percentages encapsulate not just bartering, but everything that's believed to escape the tax collector's attention, from restaurant cash tips to babysitting fees to backyard decks paid for under the table — and even organized crime.

According to the Canada Revenue Agency, though, the value of bartered goods and services should still be included in your income, and if you're a business that collects sales taxes, those transactions could have "implications" for those submissions, as well.

Grassroots efforts

In Nova Scotia, the community organization Life School House hosts "maker swaps," like the ones in Antigonish that Christine Villneff attends.

"So we bring things that we've made at home," said Villneff, who takes the plants she has propagated at home as well as things she's crocheted.

Everyone puts their items on a table, introduces themselves and explains what they've made, she said. There's no formal way of assigning value or assessing a fair trade.

"We do a few rounds around the table, and you take what you feel is a good trade for what you contributed," said Villneff.

Jennifer DeCoste, who co-founded Life School House in 2018, said the grassroots organization has five Nova Scotia locations and is expanding nationally this summer with five new community groups launching in Ontario, Alberta and B.C.

A barter network for businesses

The bartering trend has caught the attention of some tech entrepreneurs, as well, including John Porter, who founded a platform for small businesses called BarterPay in 2018. 

"We all know that bartering is the oldest form of commerce, but for two businesses to enter into a fair trade, each side would have to want what the other person has at the same time and at the same value. And so that often doesn't line up," said Porter, who is based in Stoney Creek, Ont.

Through BarterPay, which has locations in most Canadian provinces, businesses can offer up everything from merchandise to their unbooked hours, providing services ranging from accounting to printing signs.

Those generate "barter credits" that are equal to $1 each for accounting and tax purposes, said Porter. 

"Then ... they can take that newly earned revenue stream of barter credits that never expire, and they can go and barter and trade with anybody in the entire network."

Conflicting goals

However, it hasn't always gone smoothly when people try to shape bartering into larger, more formal — and tech-savvy — businesses.

Bunz Trading Zone started in 2013 as a Toronto-based network of Facebook bartering groups. When it later became a tech startup with its own platform and digital currency, it was subject to intense criticism. It eventually laid off 15 employees and scaled back its virtual currency ambitions. 

"There are serious tensions between community bartering goals, and the growth and profit goals of companies that try to popularize this model," said Nason.

"You have organizational goals that are around building community, and in many ways, fostering an alternative to the traditional finance and commercial structures. So when you have for-profit tech companies oriented around commercial growth, this comes into a rather fundamental conflict with those idealistic ambitions."

As for Samantha Fanning in Cochrane, although she's no longer a single mother, she still uses trading as a way to save money — especially since she and her husband now have four children to provide for.

They recently did a basement renovation, which included a splurge on some nice wallpaper.

"I was able to help someone with their social media accounts … and I was able to get that wallpaper installed."

WATCH | Bartering the only way in to these Nova Scotia workshops:

Bartering the only way into these N.S. workshops

5 years ago

Duration 0:37