Imagine, just for a minute, that all of the businesses here were gone, that they had been wiped out by a woefully undervalued currency and a variety of other reasons, and try to see the storefronts on main street all boarded up. Note the absence of all the special touches - the flower shops and the like. It is nothing more than dramatic hyperbole, obviously, but the point is to find a way of focusing on Barrhead, the community, and the people that live here.
Yes, our economy is off to a bad start, no one is denying it.
However, there is still reason to be optimistic.
While our own domestic product, Western Canada Select, is currently trading for less than $20 per barrel, Martin King, a leading forecaster with FirstEnergy Capital, was quoted in a CBC article as saying that despite the fact that Canada is already looking at the cheapest crude prices than anywhere else in the world, he expects the oilsands to continue to pump out oil.
We realize the fact that a glut in the market is responsible for the low oil prices and that this is hurting employment opportunities in the relevant fields all across Alberta, but beyond those two issues however lies an even more important one.
Product labelling.
Recently, the United States decided to repeal the Country Of Origin Labeling (COOL) law, which was a mandatory requirement of retailers to provide country of origin labeling on meat, vegetables, fruit and other products. For a long time, this has hurt us in certain markets - in 2009, for example, the Canadian government launched a challenge to the World Trade Organization and argued that the COOL law worked to the detriment of both sides of the US-Canada border. In 2011, despite Canada’s claims of the WTO’s ruling in our favour, the US affirmed its right to require country of origin labelling and the Canadian government at the time, in conjunction with a similar motion by Mexico, asked for a review of the ruling and the right to impose nearly $2 billion in tariffs against the United States.
We Canadians are nothing if not resilient and determined.
Country of origin labelling works both ways.
On the one hand, labelling can help people make more domestic and locally-produced purchases, ensuring in a small way that more of the profits go to Canadians instead of foreign companies. On the other hand, the absence of this type of labeling on key products will undoubtedly help our economy over the long term as well.
Doing some research of your own before you head out to do any shopping can help keep some of that hard earned Canadian currency inside our borders, in a place it belongs and can actually do some good.
So, be proud of our brand.
When you shop at local businesses, some of that money is donated by those same businesses towards the infrastructure that keeps communities like Barrhead strong.
