Buy local: City Hall’s mantra

Three options were presented to Council moving forward.

The first was to amend administrative procedures to to put criteria around informal solicitation preference to Canadian suppliers.

But Kyle Sampson put forward a motion to up the ante. It set the bar even higher, reading that Council seek to buy Canadian whenever possible “while prioritizing suppliers in the following order of preference: Prince George-based, regional, provincial, Canadian, national, international (with allied nations preferred where applicable).

“My intent was to take option one and bring it down one step. There was a little bit of leniency on a case by case basis,” noted Sampson.

The report to Council noted that “most of the City’s purchases are made from Canadian companies. Some items come directly from US companies but some of those can be redirected to Canadian companies if we are given direction to be allowed to spend more on a Canadian supplier.”

However it was also noted there are things that are not practicable, such as fire services, where almost no products, equipment, gear and apparatus can be sourced or manufactured exclusively in Canada. The same can be said of the City’s software systems.

by Cheryl Jahn

Buy local: City Hall’s mantra

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