B.C. business getting undercut by Alberta tax set-up, and government not doing anything to help

Let's talk about BC small businesses that say they're being undercut by some competition in Alberta, where there's no provincial sales tax and a different tax setup altogether. My next guest says Victoria isn't doing enough to level the playing field. Rodney Moore runs Fine Edge Beauty and Barber Supply here in Vancouver, and he joins me to explain what is going on. Rodney, welcome to the program.

Thank you, Rob. Pleasure.

Well, let-

Appreciate you having me.

Oh, I appreciate you being here, especially on a holiday. But let's start by, um, explaining to the listeners here maybe the problem in plain language. When you say that Alberta businesses can undercut you, what exactly are they doing differently on the tax side?

Well, there is no PST in Alberta. It's, uh, one of the advantages of, uh, living in Alberta. So, uh, the businesses that, um, are, pa- well, particularly online, there- there's plenty of, of businesses that, uh, are selling online right across the country. And, um, uh, one of our biggest competitors is selling directly into BC from Alberta. And, uh, it just came to our attention a number of years ago when the, some of, uh, of our customers made purchases from, uh, this Alberta business and asked us to price match. And when they would show us their invoices, we noticed that there was no PST charged. So, um, yeah, at, at that point, we decided to, you know, just do a little research to find out what the obligation is. And any business that's selling $10,000 or more in 12 months, in the last 12 months in BC, is obligated to register for and submit, uh, PST. So, um, this was four years ago that we first noticed this. So, uh, we checked in, of course, with, uh, with the Ministry of Finance and, and let them know that, that, you know, this was a concern. And they assured us that, uh, something would be done. And, um, then, you know, year after year, months after months, we continued to have customers ask us to price match, and we'd see, we'd see the same thing. So nothing's been done about it. And I don't know how many businesses are selling into other provinces from Alberta and, and not charging, not charging the proper taxes.

So this is showing up then in your day-to-day business at Fine Edge, right? Like, are you losing customers to Alberta-based online sellers, or is this more just about the prices that you now have to charge in order to stay competitive?

Well, I, w- we've, we've lost a, a, a tremendous amount of business over the years. Um, the... I mean, just generally speaking, the, the competition in, in this industry that... I mean, you're familiar with the renaissance of, of the barbering industry. Word on the street is you're, um, you're a, um, uh, a-

[laughs]

... very talented barber yourself, I understand. So, uh, yeah.

It's a rumor.

The, the rumor. [laughs] Um, yeah. And so there, there has been a lot more, uh, competition in the barber/salon supply business. And, and this, this one, uh, uh, distributor that's located in, in Alberta is, is one of the biggest, one of the biggest in Canada, for sure.

Sure.

So, uh, yeah, we've been, we've definitely been, been losing, losing business to, to them over the years. And, uh, y- I mean, my,