At a council meeting this week, councillors passed a "Buy Canadian" bylaw, which adopts a policy for municipal purchases that would help jobs to be kept in the communities.

Coun. Shawn Wilson, who brought the resolution to council, said that the resolution can be as simple as purchasing office equipment that is manufactured in Canada. He also said it is important to know whether the manufacturers are purchasing the products locally or from overseas.

The "Buy Canadian" policy would require a minimum of 50 per cent Canadian content and domestic final assembly in the purchase of public transit vehicles and the purchase of goods and services with the highest possible level of Canadian content. Potential vendors would have to identify the source of goods and services and the overall level of Canadian content as part of the tendering process, annual reports would have to be made to council on the level of Canadian content in municipal purchases and opportunities would be identified to enhance the level of Canadian content in future purchases.

The resolution was met with some resistance by Coun. Fred Neale and Coun. Michael Charron.

"Shouldn't we be looking at the legal (impact) before we pass this motion?" asked Neale.

Wilson said the main point of the resolution was that it was looking for products manufactured in Canada. He said there are no legal issues when it comes to the Free Trade Agreement when it comes to passing the resolution.

"This resolution needs to be supported by this council," said Wilson. "And if not, we can sit back and watch the manufacturing industry fall apart and do what other municipalities have done, nothing."

Coun. Jim Handley agreed with Wilson and supported the passing of the resolution.

"We just tendered a splash pad out and all the parts are all made in Canada," said Handley.

The biggest concern for Charron was that if council was already buying local, then why did they need a piece of paper to say so?

"The biggest thing we can do is everything we possibly can to encourage people in the country to look at products and do the best they can," said Charron.

The resolution was passed, with Neale and Charron opposed.