From The Mayor's Desk

Sioux Lookout Mayor Doug Lawrance

Tariffs and the Municipality

Like many, lately you may be thinking that there is much going on in the world beyond Sioux Lookout. In recent decades, as well as wars involving armed combat between and within nations, we have had the cold war, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on terrorism, the war on COVID, and more. And, of great concern to Canadians, in the past two months we have been hearing much of a trade war. This war, initiated by the United States on Canada, centres on tariffs. Unfortunately, the rhetoric of the American leadership includes insults, lies, and threats. But that rhetoric has served to unite Canadians in a renewal of patriotism.
If you are like me and many Canadians, you may be upset, angry, and looking for ways to push back, to do something. In addition to the many fine Americans living in Sioux Lookout, through personal connections, I know four Americans, all from one family, who live in the United States. In a recent communication to them, my personal pushback was to start the letter, not with the usual ‘Dear so and so,’ but rather with ‘My American Friends, never to be ‘My Fellow Americans’ but always, I hope, my American friends!’ These are strange times in both our countries. Strange times everywhere.
Locally, the question arises, what can the Municipality do to help in this international dispute. We may be able to do some things related to procurement, but whatever we do it will be most effectively done in coordination with the Provincial and Federal Governments, as well as with other municipalities. Both AMO (the Association of Municipalities of Ontario) and FCM (the Federation of Canadian Municipalities) are working in conjunction with senior governments on toolkits to provide guidance to municipalities. So as much as we want to jump into the fray right away, we are best to pause, plan, and do our part strategically with other municipalities.
Last week while reading a book by Canadian author Mark Abley, Spoken Here – Travels Among Threatened Languages, I read a paragraph in which he compared modern English to Walmart. The comparison struck me as useful for our current situation and I am going to paraphrase and re-purpose Mark Abley’s analogy: ‘The modern United States is the Walmart of nations: convenient, huge, hard to avoid, superficially friendly, and devouring all neighbours in its eagerness for power and resources. Canada, by contrast, is inconvenient, small, easy to ignore, and nearing the final stage of being too comfortable with itself and its’ neighbour.’ 
The aggressiveness towards Canada by the current American leadership has stirred up an overall patriotism amongst Canadians not seen for a long time. We do not have to be anti-American. There are many people of American origin living in Sioux Lookout and contributing to our community in many ways. Much of our tourism business depends on American visitors. There are many more ties to the U.S. But not being anti-American  does not mean we can’t be pro-Canadian. Each of us can look for Canada on labels when we shop, we can consider Canadian destinations for our vacations, we can urge our Provincial and Federal governments to build a stronger Canada and let them know we are willing to make sacrifices to do so, and we can be proud and stand up for the diversity that is Canada. You each will have other measures to add to this pro-Canada list, don’t be shy about sharing them.
The tariff war may be with us for a few months or for many years. Whatever its’ duration, we can hope that the enthusiasm for building a stronger Canada remains for a long time. The Municipality will act strategically and do what we can as part of the Canadian team.