North Battleford taking cautious approach with capital investments

“There is an option that we could ask for the chassis to come from Mexico rather than the (United States) so we can hopefully avoid some of the tariffs that way,” he said.

“We don’t know what’s going to be the impact on that, how it’s going to go so, we don’t even know if the price that we’ve been quoted is going to stay where it is.”

Originally, the council budgeted for two trucks as part of the general fund, but with so much uncertainty, they shelved that to focus on purchasing the one, which comes at a cost of $216,250 according to the capital plan-general fund.

“I guess one of the biggest things also is how tariffs can definitely affect the currency exchange between Canada and the US,” Lightfoot said.

The wealth advisor explained that when the tariffs were announced by President Donald Trump earlier this month, the Loonie lost 1.5 per cent over night.

“It shot up to the lowest levels it’s been since 2003, you know, trading at $1.47 US. It’s regained quite a bit,” he said.

At the time of this writing, it closed Friday at 70.62 cents.

“That currency exchange could be a huge, huge factor of what it’s going to cost us for goods and services from the United States,” said Lightfoot.

The word of the moment is ‘Uncertainty.’

Harkening back to the 1930’s dust bowl era, Lightfoot said that a major catalyst for it was the US put “flat across the board tariffs” on Canada, referring to the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which resulted in retaliatory tariffs.

“It’s still thought that those tariffs and that whole regime created the Great Depression,” he said.

“We’re totally different today from the 1930’s, I mean, there’s much more international trade done now than there was…so, the biggest problem is where is Trump going to go with these tariffs and how’s it going to affect us.”

BattlefordsNOW asked other municipalities such as Battleford and Meadow Lake if their councils are readjusting expectations. Neither are prepared to comment aside from that they have either not tabled any discussions or are unsure of what the impacts will be.

In a follow up comment from Candace Toma, city public and intergovernmental relations coordinator, she believes that the conversations are largely being held at the provincial level.

“I have seen some interviews with respect to possible tariff impact on businesses near the US border in communities like Estevan,” she said via email.

“The tariff conversation was raised locally mainly because the city had the option to order a piece of equipment from a Mexican vs US manufacturer, otherwise it is not something that would have necessarily been discussed at length.”

According to Mayor Kelli Hawtin, the heightened sense of uncertainty not only throws into question prices of not only capital investments but raw materials, “Which increase the cost of work that the city undertakes,” she said.

The raw materials include those used in repairing roads, chemicals used to treat water or a myriad of other impacts.

“We’re just carefully watching the conversations with a level of uncertainty as to how this’ll impact our budget as we get through 2025,” Hawtin said.

“We’re proceeding with capital work as budgeted but with a bit of cautious approach.”

Meanwhile, Lightfoot said he can see a trade war happening, which will lower the country’s gross domestic product, and it can affect it by two to three per cent.

“If we’re at two per cent or two and a half per cent now, that can completely wipe out our increase in GDP, which will create inflation, which will unemployment and that’s what creates recessions,” he said.

The wealth manager explained that because of current bank and trade policies, he doesn’t see a depression in the future, but a short-term recession could be looming.

“What could happen with these tariffs is it could knock Canadian growth out for two to three years,” he said.

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: juleslovett.bsky.social

by Julia Lovett-Squires

North Battleford taking cautious approach with capital investments

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