Keith Jack wraps his hands around a piece of Celtic-inspired silver, turning it slowly under the light. For nearly two decades, his North Vancouver shop has been a kind of quiet sanctuary. People come in for engagement rings, anniversary gifts, sometimes just to talk. But by the end of May, the doors on Lonsdale and Esplanade will close for good.
It’s not COVID-19 that did it. Jack weathered that storm, along with rent hikes and the slow bleed of foot traffic that has plagued small retail across Canada. What finally pushed him over the edge was something he couldn’t control from his workshop. U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian jewelry—now as high as 35 per cent—have gutted his wholesale business. And wholesale, he says, is what kept the lights on.
Seventy to seventy-five per cent of Jack’s revenue came from American buyers. That’s gone now, or close enough to it that the math no longer works. Add in the rising cost of silver and gold, and the Scottish-Canadian jeweller found himself staring at a balance sheet with no way forward. So he’s closing the storefront, laying off four long-time employees, and retreating to a back office in his warehouse to see if anything can be salvaged.
“It’s quite sad,” Jack told reporters this week. “We’ve been part of so many stories, so many people’s moments—engagements, weddings, anniversaries, births, deaths. It’s hard to let that go.”
The tariff fight between Canada and the United States has been escalating since early 2025, with jewelry caught in a widening net of levies that also includes steel, aluminum, and agricultural goods. According to a recent survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, three-quarters of small businesses say the tariffs have strained their relationships with U.S. partners or clients. That’s up sharply from 49 per cent a year ago.
Dan Kelly, president of the CFIB, described the situation as a kind of economic whiplash. “Small business owners have been dealing with sudden changes and threats, including many that don’t happen or are revised within hours,” Kelly wrote in the report. The uncertainty, he said, has been as damaging as the tariffs themselves.
Jack echoes that. He’s noticed more empty storefronts along Lower Lonsdale in recent months. Tourism from the U.S. has dropped off. The usual buzz of cross-border commerce has dulled into something quieter, more anxious. “I think the uncertainty emanating from the U.S. is affecting everybody,” he said.
Canada’s jewelry sector is small but significant, particularly in export-driven markets like British Columbia. Many artisans and designers rely on American buyers to sustain operations that would otherwise struggle in a domestic market saturated with mass-produced imports. When tariffs spike, the first casualties are often the smallest players—craftspeople with limited cash reserves and tight margins.
Jack’s experience is not unique. Across the country, small manufacturers and retailers have been forced to make similar calculations. Some have shifted supply chains, others have absorbed the costs and hoped for relief. Jack tried both. He scrambled for months, looking for ways to cut expenses without compromising the quality of his work or the relationships he’d built over two decades. The storefront, with its prime corner location and sizeable lease, became the obvious target.
“It’s the most significant opportunity for savings,” he said. But it also means letting go of something more than square footage. The shop was where he met customers face to face, where stories were shared and memories were anchored to handmade metal. Closing it feels like severing a part of the business that can’t be replaced online.
The layoffs are harder still. Jack describes his staff as family. They’ve been with him through the tough years, the good years, and now this. “It’s really hard to be letting people go when they really don’t want to be let go,” he said.
According to the CFIB report, more than half of Canadian small businesses no longer consider the U.S. a reliable trading partner. That’s a dramatic shift in sentiment, and it reflects a broader unease about the economic relationship between the two countries. For decades, Canadian businesses built their models around predictable access to American markets. That predictability is gone.
Jack is careful not to veer into outright anger, but the frustration is clear. “To kind of get screwed by just the tariffs and the administration and the way that they have really bullied people and destroyed businesses is quite sad,” he said.
Over the next few weeks, he’ll host VIP nights for long-time customers—small gatherings where people can say goodbye and pick up pieces they’ve had their eyes on. In May, there will be a closing-down sale. After that, it’s just Jack and a skeleton crew in the warehouse, trying to rebuild something from what’s left of the online business.
He’s uncertain about what comes next. The economy feels unsteady, the trade environment unpredictable. But he’s also grateful. Twenty years in one community is no small thing. “It’s been a wonderful ride,” he said. “I’ve really enjoyed it.”
The closure of Keith Jack’s shop is a small footnote in the larger story of U.S.-Canada trade tensions. But it’s also a reminder that policy decisions made in Washington ripple outward in ways that aren’t always visible from a distance. They show up in closed storefronts, lost jobs, and the quiet grief of a craftsman packing up his workshop.
