A small U.S. community is trying to lure Canadians back across the border with a special Easter long weekend deal.
The Point Roberts International Marketplace says this weekend it is offering a special exchange rate for Canadian cash at $0.80, meaning US$1 is CAD $1.25 this weekend and cash only.
Ali Hayton, the owner of the marketplace, told Global News that the exchange rate has been tough for Canadians and Americans the past number of years.
“So with everything else going on, we thought, what can we do to make it easier for our Canadian neighbours and friends that haven’t been able to come down for a while? And we thought we can’t do par — we’d love to, but we’d actually be selling things below what we pay for them and that’s not a real good business strategy long term.
“So we thought we’d kind of meet in the middle a little bit.”
The current exchange rate is US$0.72 for CAD $1.
Hayton said they hope it gives people an incentive to come down and explore the new golf course that has just opened, do some shopping and grab a bite to eat.
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“We’re inextricably … very reliant on the Canadian customer,” she said.
“Our store, if we were built to serve the residents of Point Roberts, we’d probably be a quarter of the size that we are. We wouldn’t have two cash drawers in every register.”
Point Roberts is a community of about 1,100 people and it is located just south of Tsawwassen.
It is a Washington state community, which is geographically part of Canada.
Recently, Point To Point Parcel served customers on both sides of the border, but co-owner Beth Calder said they can no longer sustain the business and after 24 years they will be shutting down.
She said business was down 75 per cent and it was no longer sustainable to operate.
Hayton said the COVID-19 pandemic years were hard enough to navigate but the current political climate has made things harder.
“There was no excuse for the rhetoric that was coming from the White House in Washington, calling for the 51st state or calling (Justin) Trudeau the governor,” she said. “I mean, those things were just completely uncalled for.”
However, she added that people are still fearing crossing the border due to the uncertainty around the tariffs and what they might be charged at the border.
“I think that we’re hoping that with things kind of on pause and the emotions kind of settled now, a little bit, that people are starting to realise that, you know, if people want us to be here in the good times, we need them to be here in not so good times because we can’t, we really can’t make it without them,” Hayton said.
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