DRYDEN — Being fiscally responsible, supporting the domestic economy and publicly showing solidarity in the face of threats by the United States government to Canada’s sovereignty are three reasons Dryden’s chief administrative officer says they’re changing their municipal procurement process.
The Northwestern Ontario city announced this week that it is adjusting how it sources goods and services, with a focus on buying from Ontario and Canadian vendors and providers.
“The counter-tariffs (by Canada in response to the initial U.S. ones) that that are coming into play, those will quickly have a direct impact on consumers, municipalities, businesses in Canada,” Roger Nesbitt, Dryden’s CAO said.
“But more to the point, I think overall, this trade war is meant to — or at least I believe — is meant to damage the Canadian economy … to a point to push Canada into submission on some of these negotiations.”
The initial tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump effectively make it more expensive to purchase Canadian goods in the States, while the counter-tariffs by Canada make it more costly to import items from the U.S.
The change, Nesbitt said, didn’t have to be approved by Dryden city council, as such modifications remain within the municipality’s existing procurement policy. However, he said he will be bringing a staff report to council in the near future “recommending some changes to our policy to further adopt this approach.”
“We have staff going through our procurement transactions and such as we speak, looking for those opportunities to mitigate the tariff impacts,” Nesbitt said. “I've provided instructions to our staff to go as far as the nuts and bolts that we procure to run the organization, so we're looking at everything.”
The review, he said encompasses all goods and services.
Nesbitt said that, by doing this, the municipality is in line with what he said he’s hearing around town and elsewhere from across Canada.
“It's definitely a movement that I think is growing steam, and not just with municipalities but with the private consumer,” he said. “Even within the community of Dryden, I hear so many individuals talking about looking at labels when they're in the grocery store or making decisions to purchase locally rather than purchase online through a company like Amazon.”
“This is definitely a growing movement and I think it comes back to that need for a national unified response to this threat to our economy, absolutely.”
