Business

There are many more Canadian plant closures coming

It was a not surprise to myself or my colleagues in the mergers & acquisitions community when the BF Goodrich plant closure or Worlds Finest Chocolates plant announced the closing of their Canadian plants. This was old news.

The Unions do not seem to get it. Even companies like Del Monte have stopped growing Hawaiian Pineapples. Over 700 unionized jobs will be eliminated after the next growing season. Cheaper to get it somewhere else.

Compounded with problems of foreign outsourcing from China and India, unions in North America will lead to many other plant closings that are currently under confidentiality agreements. There are dozens more coming that will shock our community and local governments over the next number of months.

Unions have served their purpose and unfortunately are now a major hindrance to the Canadian public. The speed or lack there of, at which our over-staffed bureaucracies precede has deterred a huge number of corporate decision-makers. Salaries and benefits are not the only sources of discontent between Canadian and international corporations established in Canada. The power that is wielded by many of these ignorant and no business sensitive unionists is enough to scare any prospective business from deciding to continue production. It seems, unfortunately, that although we apparently operate in a market economy, business is no longer able to be the master of its own destiny.

Since we seem to be moving to a service society, even a service sector must be driven by a productive economy. The answer is quite simple, if we as Canadians do not encourage the growth of production in this country; we will never be able to support our life-styles.

Unions are one of our key tumors in this cancerous economy. The increased costs of labour in Ontario will make it more expensive to produce goods than almost anywhere else in North America. Prepare yourself for more plant closings.