Report by ICA Ambassador to Canada 2

Report by ICA Ambassador to Canada

By Martine Lavoie

As everyone else everywhere in the world, we are living something we will never forget.

Canada is a country where nothing ever goes very high, either in economy, geopolitics, or conflicts, etc., but I would say it never goes very low either.

As for the gemstones market, with only a few exceptions, the average market is lower to medium sales; I would say from $500 to $4,000 maximum for one gemstone, with an average around $1,500 to $2,500 per sale.

Then Covid 19 arrived, and the whole country began confinement with one day’s notice on March 24th.

We are located in the province of Quebec where our Prime Minister is quite great. He was very transparent, and we’ve all listen to him. The Canadian government has helped every single person with a monthly payment that was paid directly into their bank account. And small to medium sized companies received a small loan.
We have clients from all over the country, and because every province is economically and demographically different, we continually had some small order. Many young jewelers have their studios at home, and so they continue to work. We then went to the office once and then twice a day to ship the orders.

We have been able to answer all requests from home. Because of this experience, we’ve decided to create a plasticized document to be mailed as soon as we go back to work. It will have weight estimates for all gemstones, something to help our clients, and to be kept as a useful document… and so they can think about us from time to time! It is a beautiful marketing tool and not so expensive.

As of April 28th, we’ve learned that we will be able to start to work with a certain sanitary protocols (especially distanciation – a.k.a. social distancing) as of May 25th. But it can be postponed any day, so we will wait to see what will happen.

This summer, we won’t be able to travel. Distanciation will be mandatory. But businesses are all reopening slowly in Quebec, and the rest of the country will follow.
Quebec was the only province, followed by Ontario, that was so much affected by the virus, but MOSTLY with elderly people that were already very sick. Also, we were very much affected as our school break was in February, and everyone was coming back from a trip. The rest of Canada was in a better position.

My belief is that the economy will start slowly. We had to let go of one precious employee, but hope to rehire her in 6 months. Fortunately, we can order gemstones from our very faithful suppliers without traveling for the moment. The trust is established and we need to be grateful for that.

These times are surely difficult, but I think people in the trade are strong, and we will all help each other, hoping it’s for a better world.