Well when you look at the fact that the cost of production, with shipping here ends up being between 1/10 - to 1/4 less then producing it locally - why would corporations go anywhere else.
I would also like to mention the slight minor fact that we all drive imported vehicles, whether they were made for the Canadian market or not is irrelevant, but I figured I'd throw that in there for fun.
I do a bit of side work for a CNC company that works for CAPTIN, the North American Toyota branch that makes all of the aluminum rims for this market (and no I can't get any deals for anyone). They sometimes farm out some precision parts to local manufacturers as opposed to bringing them in from Japan. Many times these local parts are substandard and require modifications to work. Now I know that Japanese quality controls and Chinese, on average, are no comparison but if you can get a cheaper part that is as good or better for less, why not? Companies like Crappy Tire could easily make a better wrench, without spending that much more, they just choose not to. The last time I bought a set of wrenches off them some were up to 0.7 mm off in their specs. 3 sets later I finally found one that was reasonable.
Moral - there isn't one, it's all about numbers in a computer and people wanting more and more of them. Hell I still miss the days where everyone made a good product at a fair price and took pride in their work.
Oh and KMS rarely has them, they do carry some cheap hub sockets in Imperial but I can't remember which size that is for around $20 - $25.
