City of Ottawa looks to ‘support the purchase of local, Canadian’ goods and services

City of Ottawa building in downtown Ottawa. (CTV News Ottawa)

A city committee wants City of Ottawa staff to support local and Canadian products and services, whenever possible, amid the ongoing threat of a trade war between Canada and the United States.

Ottawa currently purchases 92 per cent of its goods and services from local vendors, according to staff.

Councillors on the Finance and Corporate Services Committee approved a motion from Coun. David Brown for the city to prioritize Canadian products and services. The motion was presented one day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 30-day pause on a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods.

• Mayor, Ottawa Board of Trade urge people to buy local in response to U.S. tariffs

Chief Financial Officer Cyril Rogers said while the city purchases the majority of its goods and services from local companies, “they may source their products from somewhere else.”

“There could be a connection point with the U.S. commodities,” Rogers said, adding staff are working to determine how much of its goods come from the United States.

The motion calls on staff to ensure Ottawa’s procurement bylaws are “sufficiently flexible to support the purchase of local, Canadian and non-American goods and services, whenever possible.”

It also recommends Mayor Mark Sutcliffe convene a meeting of local business leaders to develop an action plan to support and promote local products and services, and meet with the Mayor of Gatineau to request governments “eliminate interprovincial trade barriers.”

An amendment to the motion also recommends the city examine “only utilizing” Canadian financial institutions for banking and investment services.

Sutcliffe wants the city to “prioritize Canadian products and services over American,” as much as possible.

“The City of Ottawa spends a lot of money on products and services and the vast majority of what we spend stays right here in Canada and right here in Ottawa. At the same time, we do buy products from American companies and American subsidiaries,” Sutcliffe told CTV Morning Live Monday morning.

“We need to support the Canadian economy during this trade war, we need to support the local economy.”

Sutcliffe says there is “a lot of uncertainty” in the Ottawa economy, as the federal government looks at job cuts, and “this trade war adds to that.”

“We have to make sure we can to protect and sustain the local economy.”

The Ottawa Board of Trade is encouraging Ottawa residents to “strengthen our own economy,” by supporting “local and Canadian products and services whenever possible.”

Leaving X?

An Ottawa councillor wants the city to explore no longer using the social media platform “X” to inform the public.

Coun. Laura Dudas will introduce a motion at the next finance and corporate services committee meeting to have the city create a plan to suspend all associated X-holdings platforms and migrate to other platforms.

Dudas notes that several Canadian municipalities have suspended their X accounts, and “shifted their public communications” to other social media platforms. Dudas notes the city maintains the “core values of transparency, impartiality, respect and accountability.”

“The company X-Corp, the owner, and their platform X have clearly demonstrated that they no longer possess or respect these values,” Dudas said.

X Corp. was established by Elon Musk after purchasing Twitter.

The City of Ottawa and OC Transpo operate accounts on X to inform residents.

Dudas told Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa Now with guest host Chris Holski that the City of Ottawa shares information with residents in a variety of ways, but she feels a continued presence on X is a “matter of concern” in the current political climate.

“Is there a need to share pertinent, timely information with residents through that particular platform or is there another way or are there other ways the city is currently using that we could share that information?” she said. “We hold certain values. We have expectations of ourselves and the platforms through which we engage with our residents. We want to be transparent and impartial. We want to share factual information and be accountable and right now it’s really hard to believe that X and X Corp and its owner espouse those same values.”

Dudas said she left what was then Twitter when it was changing ownership.

“I think at this particular point, we’re looking at X because there is questionable behaviour by its owner, by this platform and we know that as we’re looking at a made-in-Canada solution for almost all facets of our operations … I think that this is the time that we need to look at whether the City belongs on X and whether our residents want to get their information from that platform.”