THUNDER BAY -- News that Britain has opted out of the European Union sent shockwaves around the world.
Stock markets began a free fall that wiped more than $2 trillion worth of value, the British pound saw its biggest downward spiral in more than three decades and leaders in both Northern Ireland and Scotland quickly suggested they might seek a mandate to opt out of the United Kingdom.
Locally, the president of the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce says she thinks a wait-and-see approach is best.
“For any companies who export to or import from the UK there will be impacts related to possible changes in currency value. For the rest of us, as we have seen this morning the stock markets are somewhat volatile and it remains to be seen if there will be any long term financial impact as a result,” Charla Robinson said in an email response.
“For Canada, with $16 billion in exports to the UK in 2015 (three per cent of total exports) there is definitely concern as to how this may impact the Canadian economy and the removal of the UK from EU-Canada CETA (comprehensive economic and trade agreement) will most likely mean that the tariff reductions agreed to for European Union participants will no longer apply to the UK.”
In the end, the vote wasn’t that close.
The Leave side won, taking 51.89 per cent of the vote to the 48.11 won by the Remain side, leading British Prime Minister David Cameron to announce he would step aside.
Charles Cirtwell, president of the Northern Policy Institute echoed Robinson’s sentiment, saying CETA is now at risk.
The upside is that gold has risen and may stay up for a while.
“It’s what domino comes next is key,” Cirtwell said in a Twitter response.
Cirtwell added there may be renewed interest in voting to leave around the world, an idea that many not stop at the UK’s shores.
He pointed to Quebec as a possibility.
“Does it stop there? Northern Ontario?” Cirtwell tweeted.
Lakehead University political science professor Laure Paquette also took to social media to weigh in on the Brexit vote, saying it was Cameron’s “epic miscalculation” and saying he may rank with Neville Chamberlain as one of Britain’s worst prime ministers in history.
Paquette admitted it was a surprise result.
“I never saw it coming, rural voters (were) fed up with poverty, cutbacks,” she wrote on Twitter.
Technically the referendum results aren’t binding, but it’s likely Cameron will invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to being the process of pulling out of the European Union.
