The City of Prince George is reinforcing its commitment to supporting local by encouraging residents to buy local whenever possible.
The initiative promotes purchasing goods and services made in Prince George, the province, and Canada.
The City has partnered with the Chamber of Commerce to relaunch the Support PG initiative, which was originally developed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was largely a shop local campaign, and so this time around we’ve received some funding from the provincial government and we want to do a Support PG 2.0 if you will,” said Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Neil Godbout.
“It needs to be more than shopping local, that it needs to have a broader approach in terms of supporting Prince George businesses and just supporting more economic activity.”
Godbout noted they had been working on this since last year, long before the threat of a tariff war, but it’s important to support local as much as possible.
He added they’ve also seen more of a “Team Prince George” approach.
“That goes back to the survey we launched last week, and again, that was a bit of Team Prince George approach,” he said.
“We’re partnered with the City, but it’s the business associations, it’s the Chamber, it’s the Construction Association, it’s the Homebuilder’s Association, it’s the Real Estate Board, Downtown Prince George, but all of these groups coming together and really wanting to take an accurate snapshot and up to the moment snapshot of this month of where our businesses are at in terms of what they’re seeing and what they’re feeling and what they expect to be going through in the weeks and months ahead with the uncertainty created by the tariff threat and this trade war.”
Mayor Simon Yu also emphasized the importance of local support during this period.
“The situation is constantly changing, and it’s challenging for business owners to predict the long-term impacts,” Yu said.
“As a City, we want to explore what changes may be possible within our own procurement processes while ensuring we continue delivering essential services.”
At the last City Council meeting, the City’s current procurement practices were discussed.
Council requested reports come back for options on the next steps regarding procurement practices and other decisions related to the tariff situation.
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