If we were really serious about 100-mile shopping, Canadians would end up pretty vitamin deficient by the month of December. Yet, walk into any large Great Canadian Superstore and there are vegetables on offer from all over the world. The variety is probably larger than a few decades ago. Our changing cultural demographic in Vancouver ensures new and different agricultural products continue hitting the shelves. Today, our baby bok choy is from California and the tiny green, Indian eggplant grown in Mexico.
Shipping fruit and vegetables allows an increased market for farmers and it probably ensures less damage to the environment than using that land to make factories producing plastic widgets and our electronics gadgets du jour.
I often must come home for a Net search to find out about the things we've seen or bought. This is true even for tubers.