File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

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PETERS: Economic uncertainty bears unsettling resemblance to COVID-19 pandemic for Canadians

Mar 14, 2025 | 12:30 PM

IT’S BEEN FIVE YEARS NOW since the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic and that is enough time to look back on it with some perspective.

Think back to March of 2020 — if you can bear to do so — and compare it with what we’re experiencing right now.

There was so much uncertainty because most of us had never experienced a global pandemic before.

Today, none of us in Canada have experienced a U.S. president who is so hostile toward our sovereignty. It’s unprecedented.

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As we discussed last week, that’s having a huge impact on the way businesses and markets are reacting.

It’s changing consumer behaviour, just as it did in 2020.

The pandemic caused us to be uncertain about our supply chains. Some particularly skittish folks even started hoarding supplies as if preparing for the apocalypse.

Here in 2025, a lot of us are spending more time and effort learning where the products we buy originate.

Both then and now, consumers became extremely conservative with their spending, holding off on big purchases until the storm has passed.

Individuals, families and businesses alike are battening down the hatches.

Five years ago, people all over the world were forced to cancel travel plans due to restrictions on movement between nations.

Now, while such restrictions are not in place, scores of Canadians are changing plans to travel to the United States so as to avoid patronizing a nation whose president is actively threatening our sovereignty.

The overarching impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been that we cannot take our health for granted.

Unfortunately, the overarching impact of this economic threat will be more sinister — that, as a nation, we cannot take the friendship of even our closest ally as a given.

They can turn on us at any moment and we need to be prepared to go it alone or find friends farther away than right next door.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.