Cross border-shopping accounts for up to 20% of Bellingham's business.
It's too bad. Cross border-shopping hurts Canadian businesses.
But it's a bit much to expect beleaguered working Canadians to pay $110 for a tank of gas in Surrey rather than flitting across the border to pay $75 at the Grandview Arco.
Think about what you're saying, Andy. Is there no end to the sacrifice you expect working Canadians to make?
You want them to accept no appreciable wage increases for years, the erosion of union protection and the 1% getting all the benefits of profits. At the same time, you want them to feel warm and fuzzy about "supporting" big Canadian oil companies owned by Americans instead of big American oil companies owned by Americans?
On the one hand, we're supposed to be good cutthroat capitalists, with a laissez-faire market without regulation or unions or pensions or a social safety net.
On the other hand, after 30 years of disregard for their earnings and feelings, Canadian workers are supposed to consider the feelings of poor struggling Canadian businesses?
It's difficult to feel their pain.
No rush of nationalism prods me to pay $1.40 per litre instead of 85 cents or so to American-owned oil companies with no fiscal or environmental conscience.
Besides, we already give them billions in tax incentives and grants, and require from them the lowest royalties in the world.
And beyond extortive gas prices, my great love of country doesn't extend to paying twice as much to an American-owned big box store in Canada instead of to one in Bellingham.
I don't mind paying a bit more for goods and services where identifiable taxes, like those on booze, go toward social programs. After all, we do still have some social programs that require funding.
And I prefer to shop locally and support small business whenever possible. The local butcher, barber, baker and produce store needn't worry. No one is driving to Blaine for an eight-dollar haircut or cheap rutabagas.
Cross-border shopping isn't particularly virtuous but it's understandable and defendable.
For Canadian workers, cross-border shopping isn't a repudiation of Canada or a vote for the American way of life, it's advantaging a purchasing power that has been continuously stripped from them over the years.
