REGINA, Sask. — When it comes to tariffs and counter-tariffs amid the ongoing Canada-United States trade dispute, the word of the day Wednesday in Emerald Park was “uncertainty.”
The White City-Emerald Park Business Association gathered for its monthly meeting one day after Canada enacted tariffs on American imports as a countermeasure to those previously issued by the U.S. after negotiations broke down recently on a new trade deal between the two countries.
“Best-case scenario for everyone is that both sides just meet and get this figured out and kind of get life back to somewhat normalcy but I’m afraid that, every time something like this occurs, it takes a little bit of time to … resolve itself and then prices don’t always come back to where they were before because manufacturers and suppliers make adjustments and it doesn’t always revert back to pre-negotiation tariff time,” Kevin Rossler, business association president and general manager of Mazergroup’s Emerald Park location, said in an interview after Wednesday’s meeting.
“It goes back to the uncertainty and just costs of everything. Revenues are down for a lot of our customers and weather’s impacted it immensely now this past week so I mean any type of increase in costs just is detrimental on such a massive level for our clients, which means it’s detrimental for us.”
Rossler and Redhead Equipment’s chief operating officer Craig Slobodian both told SaskToday many of their products are imported from the U.S.
To an extent, that leaves them at the mercy of Canada’s retaliatory tariffs, which will increase the purchase price on goods purchased from south of the border.
The purchase price of certain American-built products that use Canadian parts and are then sold in this country are also on the rise due to tariffs previously implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“The tariff levels are of a magnitude that dealers don’t make that kind of money, so it’s impossible for dealers to eat it,” Slobodian said, noting that many equipment manufacturers had absorbed tariff costs previously but may not do the same again this time around.
“The water level in the pool is going to go up. Everybody’s going to have to raise prices but, that being said, things are not very robust in the economy right now. So if you have that water level go up from all competitors in an industry, it definitely has an impact on pricing and customers and their profitability and all that. It’s a very tough situation.”
At Mazergroup, Rossler said the company tried to mitigate the impact to customers by placing a large order with American suppliers of some commercial turf items ahead of Tuesday’s counter-tariffs coming into effect.
“These days in our industry it’s so tough to stock a lot of stuff because there are so many different options and such that it makes it very hard to stock a lot of inventory on a general level, so it’s a gamble,” he said. “It was a business decision to do that so we’ll take a risk and hope it was the right decision.”
It’s the sort of risk assessment Dwayne Downton, district manager for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, says some smaller companies may live or die by.
“Personal opinion, I kind of feel like we're almost worst-case scenario right now where your businesses are starting to see some of the effects from the people just pinching their pennies a little bit, maybe holding off on a few projects here and there,” he told SaskToday following Wednesday’s meeting.
“I'm kind of using COVID as a metric where some businesses thrived, some closed, but I kind of feel like we might be in a similar situation to that where, you know, some businesses that are hit heavily by the tariffs may not be able to sustain.
“Their business depends on how long this lasts, so best-case scenario would be both countries coming to the table, getting some sort of trade agreement in place, and these tariffs coming down and people can sort of resume business as usual.”
For Slobodian, that day cannot come soon enough.
“The whole thing makes no sense for both sides,” he said. “Canada and the U.S. need each other. It’s a bunch of nonsense. We hope it’s short-lived and common sense prevails.”
