Canadian manufacturers have responded to the pandemic crisis, and need support
It is true that fewer Canadians work in manufacturing than in the past. A sector that once employed one in five Canadians now employs fewer than one in 10.
Because of deindustrialization, inside of a generation, manufacturing became less relevant to many Canadians. Moreover, manufacturing has more recently been identified with crisis: bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler in 2009, the end General Motors’ assembly operations in Oshawa in 2019, or the recent Northern Pulp mill closure in Nova Scotia.
Manufacturing — the postwar backbone of advanced, higher wage countries like Canada — has shifted to less economically advanced, lower wage countries like Mexico. For many Canadians, “making things” became something that “others” did: out of sight, out of mind, and out of country.
Today, manufacturing is back in Canadian news, once again the result of crisis. But this time the story has shifted to how Canadian manufacturers and their employees are supporting a country in crisis.
In fact, the unprecedented response of Canada’s manufacturers to the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the continuing — and underappreciated — vitality of the sector and the flexibility and innovation of those still in its employ.
Weeks into the COVID-19 crisis, manufacturers across the country are making things they had never considered previously. A month ago, no automotive parts manufacturer was considering shifting production to ventilators; craft brewers were not contemplating producing hand sanitizer; and few aerospace industry suppliers understood — or were interested in — medical device production.
Suddenly, that’s changed, and Canada is much better for this lifesaving production shift that only manufacturing can provide.
Well-known homegrown companies like Magna, Linamar, Canada Goose, Stanfield’s, Bauer and Muskoka Brewery have stepped in and recast their (hopefully) short-term priorities. On top of that, dozens of smaller companies in the Golden Horseshoe, such as Cayuga’s Battlefield International, Hamilton’s AVL Manufacturing, St. Catharines’ RegattaSport, and Oshawa’s All or Nothing Brewhouse have started manufacturing new products — some of which are destined to local hospitals — with civic duty, rather than profitability, in mind.
Meanwhile, an industry association, the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, originally established to lobby government for its benefit, have mobilized members and nonmembers alike, practically overnight, to identify and co-ordinate new supply chains and link new industries and old competitors to common purpose.
Manufacturers are like farmers and construction companies — and similarly distinct from other parts of our economy — in that they take something and turn it into something else, a process of value-adding that provides the foundation for much of our wealth and well-being. Many Canadians take these things for granted.
While the service economy — selling things, moving money around, medical treatment — is a vital aspect of society, compared to manufacturing, those activities’ effects on other parts of the economy tend to be muted. Manufacturing plays an outsized role in terms of trade, R&D, and its capacity to create jobs across supply chains and the broader economy.
Moreover, inside the buildings that make up Canada’s manufacturers, an enormous amount of complex knowledge creation and innovation occurs. Indeed, manufacturers would not endure in Canada — and would not be available to pivot to the extent those companies listed above have — if they were not sophisticated, flexible, and innovative.
Thus, to the country’s growing list of COVID-19 first responders we can add Canada’s manufacturers. By pushing back against the impetus of economically advanced, higher wage countries to deindustrialize, some of Canada’s most progressive companies have made themselves available to lend their unusual innovative capacity to mitigating the effects of Canada’s greatest challenge since the Second World War.
Eventually, preoccupations surrounding COVID-19 will shift from day-to-day management to longerterm reflection. When that happens, Canada’s manufacturers will expect that their role, and governments’ role in supporting them, will have become more clear. This will include greater recognition of the fact that countries that allow their manufacturing to wither undermine their short-term ability to respond to crisis and their longterm capacity to innovate.
As that occurs — assuming that occurs — the urgency of arresting Canada’s now generation-long process of deindustrialization must preoccupy Canada, its manufacturers and its policy-makers.
Greig Mordue is Associate Professor and ArcelorMittal Dofasco Chair in Advanced Manufacturing Policy at McMaster University. Brendan Sweeney is the Managing Director of the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing.