Byline: Paul Hogendoorn
“Manufacturing isn’t an industry, it’s a community”.
I came across this quote on a LinkedIn post a couple weeks ago, and it really resonated with me.
Manufacturing is indeed a community; it’s a community of people who get things done, who understand real value and know how to build things, partnerships and prosperity. The manufacturing community at large created, and sustains, the middle class. And our manufacturing “community” spans the Canada, U.S. border and Mexican borders, with like-minded manufacturing organizations in each country.
However, once you get out of the manufacturing “community” and start looking at the manufacturing “industry”, or manufacturing “sector”, things start to look different. Politics come into play, and just as damaging, public opinion and sentiment.
The North American manufacturing industry has become polarized, and although tariffs and trade talks are a dynamic and ongoing issue, one big factor I see is the escalation of hard feelings by Canadians, particularly those who aren’t directly involved in manufacturing, towards America. This is pervasive in the Canadian media and with certain Canadian politicians. None of whom have a real understanding of what it takes to succeed as a manufacturer, and what it took to get where they are. Conversely (from my vantage point), it seems that politicians in Mexico have found a way to stay better aligned with America and avoid the senseless rhetoric.
When speaking to the Canadian manufacturing community at large, you find a strong contingent who have no ill feelings towards their American counterparts. Manufacturers on both sides of the border have long counted on one another, supported one another, collaborated with one another, bought and sold from one another and succeeded and suffered with one another. They remain members of the same community at large.
It’s the politicians that have made it seem otherwise, and they’ve taken the positions they have for their own political gain. To be clear, I’m not talking about DJT and his tariff tactics. In my opinion, he set out on a course to ensure the long-term stability of the American manufacturing industry, and a strong and healthy U.S. manufacturing sector is ultimately good for all western democratic societies intent on maintaining a strong middleclass. As I stated in my previous column, it’s a matter of putting your own oxygen mask on before you help the person beside you do the same. It’s time to stop pretending; without a healthy US manufacturing economy, we’re all in serious trouble.
The problem, as I see it, was not DJT’s initial negotiating stance, it was the Canadian government’s “elbows up” response. Both the Canadian federal government (Liberal) and the Ontario provincial government (Conservative) adopted an “us versus them” mentality and message that was amplified by the media, stirring up negative public sentiment towards America. It was a tactic to help them win elections, and it did that, but the after-effect lives on.
Much of Canada’s media continues to play up to this negative narrative, and surprisingly, the Premier of Ontario continues to fuel it, despite the fact that Ontario’s primary economic engine is manufacturing. Canada, and in particular, Ontario, could learn a lot from how Mexico handled the same tariff challenge.
The manufacturing community is a community that serves our countries and societies well. They build things. They build partnerships. They build prosperity. There is no denying any of that – all of those outcomes have been, and still are, self evident. Politicians, the media and even the Canadian public in general need to be reminded of that. It’s time to put entrenched political party differences aside, drop the public charades, and get a deal done so the manufacturing community can once again do what it does better than anyone else – and that is be the economic engine that sustains both nations’ middle classes.
Outcomes speak for themselves, and manufacturers deliver that – day in, day out, week in, week out. There is no room for excuses, or fresh new promises to replace old broken ones; manufacturers deliver, they build, and they want to control their own destinies by meeting the expectations of their customers. And they’re very good at that. They’ve been doing it for over a century, year in, year out. They’ve done it by collaborating, competing, solving problems, adapting and executing. Our governments could learn a lot by gaining a true, tactile and tangible understanding of all that.
From my vantage point, the American manufacturing community is full of fresh confidence and renewed vigor, (and there are objective economic indicators that support that). And that’s a good thing. The Mexican and U.S. manufacturing relationship quickly weathered the short-term relationship challenge. Let’s hope the Canadian manufacturing community gets to start to feel reconnected and relationally restored again.
Enough harmful words, enough empty slogans. It’s in everyone’s best interest to restore a great and prosperous manufacturing “community” that spans the Canada-U.S.-Mexico borders.
