Border city mayors, including Sarnia's Mike Bradley, are urging the federal government to take immediate action to prevent the permanent closure of Canada’s land border duty free stores.
They've penned an open letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney and Minister of National Revenue François-Philippe Champagne.
Mayor Bradley said it outlines the potential devastating impacts of such closures.
He said the stores are facing issues including tariffs and ongoing cross-border travel disruptions.
"They employ about 3,000 people across Canada directly," said Bradley. "They are in substantial trouble. They came out of COVID, when there wasn't cross-border traffic, into a new climate thanks to President Trump and the tariffs where people are not travelling to the U.S. as much. We're seeing that in dramatic numbers at every border crossing across this country."
Bradley said the federal government needs to step in and offer help right away.
"Some of that has to do with regulations, some are tax issues, but it needs to be done immediately," he said. "They're on the front line, and with this dramatic decrease at every border crossing across Canada, they need some assistance to survive. They are major employers in a lot of communities. There are an estimated 50 to 75 people that work at the duty free store in Point Edward."
Bradley said there are regulations that need to be changed.
"We need a whole change in excise tax policy, related to their export status, to level the playing field with their U.S. competitors and improve their long term competitiveness," said Bradley. "In many duty free stores, there's a significant decrease in staffing right now. There's one at the Niagara border crossing that's gone into bankruptcy. There may be other factors there too, I don't know. I did recently talk to one duty free store operator in the west, who has two of them, and the situation is dire for them. They just don't know if they can survive with this huge impact happening at the border."
Bradley said it's once again a matter of strength in numbers.
"There's no question that Donald Trump has done a lot to unite Canadians on many different issues, and this is another example of that," he said. "We are trying to deal what he is doing in his administration. With the support of 77 million Americans who have voted for him, they're doing great damage to this country economically. If we start to lose the duty free stores, that will be the first line that we have. After that, you'll start to see other major impacts because of the tariffs and the anti-Canada attitude of the current American administration."
Border city mayors and representatives from the Frontier Duty Free Association will be holding a news conference on Tuesday morning on Parliament Hill.
It's scheduled for 8:30 a.m. and will highlight the open letter.
Bradley said he will be attending via Zoom.