Latest news with #CharlaRobinson
CBC
06-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
New fund supports smaller Thunder Bay businesses during US-Canada trade war
Social Sharing The Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce and Community Economic Development Commission (CEDC) are teaming up to support small-and medium-sized businesses as they navigate the Canada-United States trade war. The two organizations launched the Small Business Tariff Response Fund on Monday. The fund will provide 15 eligible businesses with $7,500 in funding, for projects that have a minimum cost of $10,000. Applications will be accepted until May 30. "Tell us the story about how this is going to impact your business," chamber President Charla Robinson said. "What is the breadth of the impact, how are you going to transition it, and what kind of resources are you needing, so that we can evaluate who needs the money the most." "It is a very limited amount of funding, but we feel that the 15 projects should be sufficient to address the need in the market." Robinson said the fund is open to businesses with 50 or fewer employees. "We know that both the federal and provincial governments are still working on some bigger programs," she said. "But we didn't want to wait too long." "We want to make sure that businesses know that there's something that is much more quick and responsive to their needs, so that they're not left holding the bag, so to speak," Robinson said. "So that's why we wanted to roll this out as quickly as we can." Jamie Taylor, CEO of the CEDC, said it's hard to predict the impact of the trade war and tariffs, because things are changing so quickly. "We've heard from several small businesses through our entrepreneur centres specifically about how it's affecting them," she said, adding that with the pandemic, there's been a lot of turmoil for smaller businesses in recent years.
CBC
05-03-2025
- Business
- CBC
US tariffs 'discouraging': Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce president
The president of Thunder Bay's chamber of commerce says she's happy to see Canada and its provinces pushing back against United States tariffs. The country imposed a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian, and Mexican, goods on Tuesday. Canada retaliated with tariffs, and other measures, of its own. "Canada and the provinces have been pushing very hard to try to find a solution and that would work for the US administration," said Charla Robinson, president of the city's chamber. "Unfortunately, it seems that all that effort hasn't really resulted in what we were hoping for." "That is discouraging, but pleased to see the strength of both the prime minister and the premiers coming out and continuing to stand together, and saying, 'OK, this is where we're at. We're going to push back and we're going to do what we need to do to protect Canadians and the Canadian economy from this unjustified trade war.'" Canada's retaliatory measures include a 25 per cent tariff of its own on U.S. imports. Ontario Premier Doug Ford also announced the LCBO would pull all American products from its shelves. The move took the LCBO website offline on Tuesday, with a message reading "service unavailable." "Our site is temporarily unavailable while we remove U.S. products in response to U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods. Our in-store customer service remains unaffected. Thank you for your patience and understanding." Ford also announced that Ontario will rip-up its deal with Elon Musk's Starlink satellite Internet provider, and American companies will be barred from provincial procurement contracts. Robinson said the United States doesn't understand how connected the two countries are. "This is all the doing of the US government," she said. "They have made this choice to attack their friend and neighbour." "They clearly don't quite understand just how integrated we are, and that it will be felt on the U.S. side as well as on the Canadian side," Robinson said. "This isn't just going to punish Canadians, this is going to punish Americans and they're going to feel it hard." "The president needs to understand that." United States President Donald Trump had initially planned to impose the tariffs about a month ago. However, he delayed the move at the last minute. Robinson said the month-long delay was beneficial to Canadian business. "The extra time definitely, from what I'm hearing, has allowed businesses to get a better understanding of potential impacts, potential opportunities to address those impacts," she said. "It's also allowed Canadian and local companies to take a look at their product lines to see where are the things that they're importing from the U.S. potentially going to be impacted, and what might they be able to do to find different suppliers that are not from the U.S." Fort Frances Mayor Andrew Halikas said he's concerned about the impact the trade war could have on the town, which is located along the Minnesota border. "There's a great deal of uncertainty, in fact, over what the tariffs are really are going to do," he said. "But one thing we know for sure, we get a lot of fruits and vegetables from the Americans, and so the cost of food is going to go up." "And like everywhere else, I think, in the province of Ontario, we suffer from homelessness. We have people here who are down on their luck, and any kind of increase in the cost of food and the necessities of life are going to harm people." Fort Frances agricultural and forestry businesses will also be hit, Halikas said, as they send exports across the border. And then there's the impact on tourism, Halikas said. "We're a gateway to northwestern Ontario," he said. "Around Fort Frances we have a lot of beautiful pristine lakes and forests, so we are a tourist destination." "We're worried that our tourism is going to take an impact," Halikas said. "Our tourist camps are going to be more expensive to operate, so they're going to have to put their prices up and we don't know what effect that will have on our American friends coming up."
