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As gas prices continue to change dramatically amid disruptive global conflict, Ottawa businesses are finding ways to handle the high costs.
In the Glebe, Lena Hernandez sits in The Paw Bus, a gas-guzzling minibus designed to take dogs to and from activities.
The business officially launched earlier this year. Hernandez intended to bring her services to the city’s suburban areas, but gas prices stopped her.
“It was an issue when I was doing the free assessments because I was actually making absolutely zero money,” she said. “Even if I want to put gas for $50, it wouldn’t make sense for me to have a drive for 30 minutes and pick up dogs. So then I have to start saying no to people. That means losing business as well.”
Liam Mackey works for Canton’s Mindful Gardens, a family-run landscaping company that has a couple of trucks and a crew of about six employees.
It is one of many small businesses trying to manage yo-yoing gas prices.
“The cost kind of trickles down, right. So it gets put into customers’ budgets like when we’re quoting on jobs. You can’t get there for free, right?” he said. “So it’s affecting not only us, it’s affecting customers and everyone around us.”
Liam Mackey of Canton’s Mindful Gardens does some landscaping work. (Nicolas Legault/CBC)
Laval University economist Patrick Gonzalez cautions the situation could be much worse.
“It’s impacting everyone in Canada, but we have to remind ourselves, I don’t want to be preachy, but there are some places in the world that are much more impacted than us,” he said.