I think part of the reason you don't see the need to buy local is because you "don't really identify myself with any of those groups in any strong way." And I think that's a shame. Why don't you identify yourself with the Island? You live here, you work here even if your clients aren't from here, and you are (knowingly or not) affected by your suroundings.

It seems to me that by encouraging local commerce we push them to grow and get better. Why can't Alan get a good suit made on the Island? That makes no sense at all. Islanders wear clothes. We can make good jam. Why can't we make a good suit?

I don't buy nearly all my products on the Island, but I do enjoy it when I can. Buying something made here, by people I might know, makes me feel good. Especially around Christmas time. I might order a book "from away" for my girlfriend who lives on the Island, but I really enjoy sending something that is made here to people "from away".

By buying local we support each other and help each other grow. I know of one person who told me today that they called their National Office in Toronto to point out with pride the Island company who's Intranet was named best of 2001. The National Office replied, "You have somebody that good on the Island?" Might be that your next client "from away" found you because of a local friend you didn't know you had.

2. Is the lack of "home" love of the province or Canada an error or valid? Whether you place your self as of this province (example Charlie) of the Maritimes (example me) or of no place (Steve), is that decision reviewable on a validity scale? I think it is just a subjective feeling.

3. Is the question of supporting "local" not tied to your definition of locality. I buy Ontario wine when a good one is available at a good price - like in Sackville NB. I like to buy books of good Maritime poetry to both support and enjoy. I like Maine. All reminds me of me and where I like to call "here". It is too relative to personal experience to be either corrected upon or the base for an economy - unless you induce disincentives to go anywhere else like a punative bridge toll and an encouraged xenophobic/isolationist culture.

When the local economy is doing well then you do well; not only because they will shop at your shop (which in this case probably does not apply to you) but you will have more choices. Imagine a booming Charlottetown economy. Imagine the demand for snazzy envelopes is at an all time high. Imagine a local company responding and getting really creative and coming up with stuff that you actually like.

Now imagine that everyone shops elsewhere whenever it's at all convenient and does little to shop locally. No booming demand for much of anything and certainly not anything as quixotic as high-market envelopes -- but, you're still in the market for same and have to (MUST) shop elsewhere. Imagine!

Buy locally because you are part of an ecosystem, and ecosystems are mostly local. Or at least they're more local than they are not local.

Our community -- any community -- is largely shaped by commerce. New buildings get built, old buildings get torn down, roads get paved, high-speed Internet gets installed, hospitals operate, wacky light shows get created, all because of businesses, and the taxes these businesses generate. Local businesses.

Now I'm as anti-business as the next guy, but right now this is the way it is. When, eventually, we shape our communities through consensus-based collectives, things will be different.

But right now, our strongest "vote" is with our dollar, and where we choose to paint those dollars can have a dramatic effect on the look and feel of our community.

If you care about design and aesthetics and the environment, then you can choose to spend at those local businesses that respect the [visual, aesthetic, cultural, spiritual] environment you prefer and in doing so you help to shape your community.

You can, of course, also choose to shape the community of Chicoutimi or Uzbekistan, but doing so will have little impact on your own environment, and as these places are at the far end of your ecosystem, such purchasing could be viewed as cross-ecosystem meddling (others might call it economic aid).

I buy my tea at the Formosa Tea House, my New Yorker and Tweel's Gift Shop, my vegi-burgers at the Uncommon Grocer, my Volkswagens from Sherwood VW, my iBooks from the little mac shoppe because by doing so I say "I support the way you are doing business, I would like there to be more businesses like you, thank you for making my little town a better place."

In my crazy mixed up view of the world, all of these choices combined are my ripples out into the Charlottetown ecosystem.

I buy my gasoline, when I can, from Clow's General Store in Hampshire. I do this for the same reason: "Bobby," I am saying with my dollar, "please keep on doing what you're doing." Clow's is not part of my immediate ecosystem -- but it's close, a couple of ripples upstream.

When I buy potatoes, I buy PEI potatoes. As with Clow's, my potato farming neighbours are further afield then Eddie's Lunch, but they are still my neighbours, and what they do affects me more than what New Brunswick potato farmers do, and vice versa. If I buy PEI potatoes, and vote for governments that support the buffer zones and crop rotation, and so on, then I am part of the local PEI potato ecosystem too.

So, back to your original notion of buying envelopes: go to Action Press on Queen Street in Charlottetown.

Go to Action Press because they are a good bunch of people. Go to Action Press because some of the people who work there probably voted for your father. Go to Action Press because they choose to stay in downtown Charlottetown, and to improve a heritage building, and that makes your community a more beautiful place. Go to Action Press because they have done free printing work for the L.M. Montgomery Land Trust, and that serves to preserve a small piece of your Island home. Go to Action Press because they have an incentive to do a good job for you because they know that if they don't, you will tell your friends and neighbours, and that would be a Bad Thing for business (or, conversely, if they do a great job, that will be a Good Thing for business). Go to Action Press because having a good local printer makes it possible for all downtown, locally-based businesses to operate more productively.

As to "hey, I've Steve, a citizen of the world, not some parochial Islander," well, that's simply a lie.

Your business could not exist -- could not have come into being -- without the support and love and attention of your local friends, family, community, Island. You could not have created a successful business in Chicoutimi or Uzbekistan. You could not have created a successful business without your local ecosystem to support you.

And so if there is any reason to buy locally, is that you owe your local ecosystem a great debt of gratitude for that.

Isn't that like Island Tel saying 'pay more for our services because we support the Gold Cup and Saucer Parade'? I actually did witness them saying this once as a defence for their web hosting pricing.

It sounds like, and you may or may not take issue with this, you should buy local to make your locale better. A region strives to export more than it imports. This can only happen at the expence of other regions. Should I support Charlottetown at the expense of Moncton and expect Moncton to support Charlottetown at their own expese?

But don't neglect the fact that the idea of Prince Edward Island is central and important to the success of Canada. In other words, people living in large Upper Canadian cities, spending 3 hours in their car every day commuting to work, breathing in smog, etc. require the notion of a pastoral green oasis to the east, where times are simpler and the living easier, to be able to get up in the morning. This is, I think, our most important contribution to Canada. And Canadians are getting their money's worth.

By the way, Steven, if you do buy your envelopes in Chicoutimi, here is some information you will find helpful in times of emergency:

• RCMP Chicoutimi Detachment
• Chicoutimi Hospital
• Chicoutimi Fire Department

Realize that it will probably take a little longer for these Chicoutimi-based services to kick in when your home or office is on fire here in Charlottetown, or your appendix has burst here in Charlottetown, or someone has stolen your car here in Charlottetown.

I love to walk the waterfront. I love that it is safe here. I seldom lock my car. Note to would be thieves, you'll find nothing of value in my car but photos of my insides (be warned - this is actually a link to photos of my insides).

I think I will now buy locally because I'm affraid the ambulance driver's wife may work at Action Press when my appendix eventually fails and he will drop me in the river.

Peter - PEI is that daydream for some in Ontario but so is Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Algonquin, BC islands, their golf course, their cottage. PEI is neither unique or in any way singular as being the urbanites get away. It is also not nearly the dream get away for most urbanites - check total tourist figures in Canada. That some like it does not excuse unique and singular navel gaving, insularity and subsidization and forgetting that we owe alot more to the country than credit is given.

That all being said, I also love living here [though learning about the latent peticides in the aquifer this morning was unusually unsettling]. That does not mean - despite cultural pressures to the opposite - that you do not point out the wrongs and the gaps. It also should not mean that you compromise in your purchasing standards as either a business or privately to accomodate those who have compromised their standards. By what is good and buy it here - where ever your here is.