Border mayors, industry group call on feds to save duty free stores
'There are 3,000 jobs at stake right across the country at duty free stores'
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OTTAWA — A common sight at land border crossings, challenging economic times may soon spell the end of Canada’s duty free shops.
And that end could be mere weeks away if action isn’t taken, said Barbara Barrett, executive director of the Frontier Duty Free Association.
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“These stores, and the communities they support, have endured a long road through the pandemic and years of uncertainty, and financial loss,” she said during a Tuesday press conference on Parliament Hill.
Barrett, joined by the mayors of Sarnia and Windsor, released an open letter to the government calling for action to save Canada’s land border duty free shops, signed by 15 mayors of Canadian border cities and towns.
“The strain in the U.S.-Canada relationship has triggered an immediate and dramatic drop in cross-border traffic,” Barrett told reporters.
“As soon as tensions began between our two countries, our industry saw the impact right away.”
Customer numbers fell almost overnight, she said, and the sharp decline has continued — bad news for an industry largely consisting of independent and family-run businesses that cater exclusively to cross-border traffic.
In their letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney and Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, the association is asking for government support via Export Development Canada, the Business Development Bank of Canada and the Canada Small Business Financing Program, government reaffirmation of the export status of land border duty free stores, and aligning Canada’s excise tax policies to level the playing field with their American counterparts.
Some mayors who signed the letter include Sue McKortoff of Osoyoos, B.C., Wayne Redekop of Fort Erie, Justin Towndale of Cornwall and Woodstock, Man.’s Trina Jones.
“This is a crisis,” Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley told the press conference. “There are 3,000 jobs at stake right across the country at duty free stores.”
Bradley said duty free stores are still recovering from the two-year border shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which he said had a dramatic impact.
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens — whose city is home to Canada’s busiest land border crossing — said the impact is coming from the drop in discretionary cross-border travel sparked by opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war against Canada.
“Sales in the Windsor region are down by 40% — these are small, independently-owned businesses who’ve just come back from COVID, we’re trying to get our traffic back to pre-COVID levels. We’re not quite there yet, and now we’ve got another hit these businesses,” he said, adding what’s happening in his city and Sarnia is reflected in border towns across Canada.
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