Our Changing Environment: Smoke and Tariffs!
by Scott A. Sumner
A long time ago, a female business owner in Thunder Bay, who has a very famous brother in the music business located in California, told me you should say whatever you want in your publisher's note because it's your vehicle to get your thoughts out there to people.
I think that always resonated with me and today not only can I put my thoughts out to people that live in Thunder Bay and the immediate vicinity, but I can place them up for the world to see. Our publication is on the internet, social media and the Press Reader platform. Press Reader is a world class platform of hundreds and hundreds of publications that is based in Vancouver. I'm happy to deal with a Canadian company.
Each day when we wake up in Canada today it seems we get something new which can be pretty challenging! We've lived in a smoke filled environment for over a week now which that thankfully seems to have cleared a bit today as I write this. This week you looked out of your windows or you're on your deck and it's like bright sunshine, but you can't see the sun because it's smokey. It's almost like an an apocalypse now environment and makes you really wonder. I do feel for those that have had so much loss because of the fires we had been experiencing in Northwestern Ontario, some who have lost everything. It's definitely challenging.
We have the smoke and fire conditions in Northwestern Ontario and it can migrate to places as far away as Toronto and into the US to places like New York City. It's sort of very discouraging that you get those in leadership positions in the US, tell us that we better get our smoke under control or they're going to tariff us or make us pay. So many wild statements from people in positions of power that we've never really experienced before, at least in my lifetime. Normally they would have offered to help us if they could.
Also out of the blue the US government have just announced that they will tariff Canada 50% on a long list of items in about a months time. This is on top of all the tariffs Canada has been living with on wood products, which is very important economy in Northwestern Ontario, on steel and aluminum in Ontario and Quebec, and on the car industry. This has basically made major automobile companies have to totally re-organize their approach to make sure that their vehicles are not achieving tariffs and even then that's not possible in its entirety. I know when I got a new truck recently it was made in Mexico. Major automobile companies have lost billions of dollars through these tariffs as have others in these distinctly affected areas. Overall I think the tariffs have cost Canada billions! I guess the hope is that as time goes on things will change, say because of political elections, which are happening in the US in November. I think things could also change because people finally have had enough, and they want to place their economy on a more traditional, solid footing than the chaos that we have at the present time.
What can you do as a person, as a business owner? I guess you just have to go along as best you can, work with what you can and see what happens because we don't really control these major events. We don't control how the US treats Canada or how the world economy will react.
However we can control our own actions and I like the concept of spending your money and your time in Canada not in other places. Supporting Canada and seeing what Canada has to offer, buying things that are made in Canada has made a major impact on our fortunes here I think and as time goes on, I think there's no doubt that Canada is going to win.
Remember, we have the second largest land mass in the world. We have tremendous resources that the world needs in many areas, such as energy, food and water. Perhaps most of all, we have a tremendous educated population that can help Canada pivot to improve even more as the months and years go on!
