It would be hard to find someone in Canada who hasn’t been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some have been diagnosed with the disease or know someone who has been diagnosed. (Of course, we have yet to have our first official case in Estevan).
But we’re all feeling the pinch. We’ve seen people cancel holidays and we’ve seen games and community events postponed or cancelled, and we’re starting to encounter what will be a hard and prolonged economic hit.
And with this economic hit, it’s more important to support small businesses than ever.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, small and medium-sized businesses are a backbone of the community. This includes independently-owned franchises, such as restaurants and retail outlets.
They create employment. They support local initiatives and organizations. They make our communities go.
In the case of Estevan, we’re blessed to have such a wide range of local businesses that deliver such a wide range of products in the community, and have such a strong impact.
And so during these tough times, we need to be there for them, just like on so many occasions, there are there for us.
We’ve seen some businesses that have been forced to temporarily close, and other businesses that have had to alter their operations. Restaurants are among those who have taken the hardest hit so far.
But others are also going to feel the impact. And they’re going to feel it for quite a while.
Yes, it hurts to see an event cancelled or postponed. Virtually every event that I had on my calendar for this week has been wiped out. I feel terrible for the kids who worked hard on a music festival performance, only to be unable to perform it, and it sucks that the 20-year-olds on the Estevan Bruins had their junior careers end because of COVID-19 rather than elimination from the playoffs on the ice.
But in the end, losing an event isn’t as terrible as losing a job, or losing considerable revenues due to something you have no control over.
So it’s important to support the businesses that we have for as long as we can. We don’t know how long some of them will be open; others will remain open throughout this pandemic, because they’re essential services.
We’ll still need our pharmacists, grocery stores and service stations.
And as long as our businesses are open, it’s important for us to say no to online shopping.
Let me preface this by saying I’m not an online shopper. I don’t have an Amazon account, and while I’ll never say never, I can’t foresee a situation in which I’ll feel the need to get an Amazon account.
If I’m the last person on the planet who has Internet but doesn’t use Amazon (or another similar service), that will make me happy.
I have yet to see Amazon make a donation to the United Way Estevan telethon. I have yet to see Amazon purchase a table for the St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation’s Festival of Trees. I have yet to see Amazon sponsor a local minor hockey team or a baseball team, and I’ve never seen them sponsor an exhibit at the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum.
If one of these things happens, I might feel the compunction to go to Amazon. Until then, forget it. I’ll support local business.
Amazon’s never done anything for us.
Sure, there are some things that I can get on Amazon that I can’t get here. We don’t have a bookstore here. We don’t have a Cuban cigar shop here, either. I can pick up a few books here and there throughout the year, and get a few books at Christmas.
As for Cuban cigars, I’m not sure if they fall under Amazon’s product list.
Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe there are things that can only be purchased on Amazon, or equipment that can only be purchased from the U.S. But I doubt I’ll ever see a benefit from Amazon and other online-only retailers, and I don’t see many reasons to shop online.
One last thing. If you’re the type who goes to a business, looks at their prices, and then goes and uses that price to shop online, then yeah, that’s pretty pathetic.
We’re all going to take a hit over the coming weeks and months. It’s just a matter of how hard that hit is going to be.
For a region like ours, that has been through so much since the summer of 2014, COVID-19 is another blow that we really didn’t need.
We can consider ourselves fortunate that we haven’t been hit as hard as a country like Italy or Spain or Iran. We don’t know how much worse it’s going to get here, or if it’s going to be as bad as those countries.
But as long as we can, we need to support local business as much as possible.
Not only will it help now, it will ease our pain just a little bit once things return to normal.
