As the trade war between the U.S and Canada continues, the President of the Olds & District Chamber of Commerce says uncertainty is the big part of it.
After the Chamber’s annual general meeting last Thursday, Doug Rieberger stated right now it is tough for us to even look at how it is going to affect local businesses because we don’t know what is going to come down for tariffs. He says “it seems like a moving target and that uncertainty is hurting our business. It’s hurting our dollar which a lot of businesses get goods from around the world and that. That’s a real cost to us. It starts to affect interest rates, it starts to affect the costs of the goods coming in. So, I really support and like to see people doing the local shopping and trying to keep it as close to the local community as possible to try and minimize those affects.”
Rieberger notes that a lot of businesses don’t realize is that by being a member of the Olds & District Chamber of Commerce, they also have a membership provincially. He says “they also have a membership of 200 different Chambers in Alberta alone through the Alberta Chamber of Commerce that can give us a lot more supports and that at the provincial level. We also have input into the Canadian Chamber. So there’s a lot of different avenues that we can utilize and assist them, even with questions that they may have.”
The Olds Chamber of Commerce’s AGM last Thursday saw some new faces added to the Board and they will have their first meeting this evening (March 19th). Rieberger says “I just encourage the local business community to remain resilient. Utilize the supports and that we have available and that’s what we are looking at with the Chamber as well to add some of those supports and keep your head up. I’m a business owner as well and it’s going to impact my business and until we find out what it is, it’s very difficult to figure out how we are going to approach it.”
