A well-known jewelry store in North Vancouver is closing its doors.
Keith Jack designs and sells handmade Celtic jewelry and despite surviving the COVID-19 pandemic, he says the tariffs hit him harder.
“The tariffs from the U.S. started to affect us early last year,” he told Global News.
About 75 per cent of Jack’s business comes from the U.S. and he said that market has nearly dried up.
“A lot of the stores that were buying from us have had to find other places to buy because they can’t rely on Canadian suppliers,” he said.
Jack’s jewelry was hit with tariffs as high as 35 per cent and because some production happens overseas, it doesn’t qualify for duty-free trade under CUSMA.
Last year, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) warned that one in five businesses could fail without some help from the government.
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“That’s sort of what we’re starting to see now,” Ryan Mitton with the CFIB said.
It is calling on Ottawa to return counter-tariff revenue to businesses.
“And at the provincial level, we need to stop increasing taxes,” Mitton said. “Expanding PST to accounting and bookkeeping or private security is only going to increase the cost of doing business for many firms already struggling to hold on.”
Jack is moving his business to online only, hoping to keep it alive.
But closing the store means laying off staff, which he said is a real-world impact that U.S. officials are ignoring.
“I don’t think they give a damn,” he said. “For them, I think it’s all about money, and the people at the very top are doing very well.”
The store is set to close at the end of May.
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