I looked at the HRV, I wasn't really impressed by the car itself at that pricepoint or the financing. Hopefully she's liking the Bronco, a friend has one, seems like a fun car to drive.
Had good luck with Mazdas, so was looking at the CX5 and CX30, as well as the Passat, but then I swang by Subaru on a recommendation from one of the guys from work, took the crosstrek for a spin and everything just kind of felt 'right', and the loaded model was less then models of others I was looking at. Everything is where you kind of expect it, with actual buttons and dials for most things (except the climate control details, but got used to that).
One thing with traveling more and getting rental vehicles is I've gotten to try out a lot of N. American made cars, and haven't returned one yet thinking 'I'd buy that'. Some have digitized so much the actual interface is way more complicated then it needs to be, others have genius things like the stupid dial to change drive modes, (right on the same spot on the console that every one else has had a dial for navigating the entertainment console in the non-touch screen era) and just generally has things in non-intuitive spots, combined with pretty sloppy performance, so really unimpressive.
Everyone I know that had jobs in the auto sector has been laid off over the years (and some were screwed around a lot), so there really isn't any 'buy Canadian car' loyalty left, especially when you have other alternatives that are consistently safer, better made and cost the same or less.