Sad. Not sure of the cause of closing of this factory.

It's good to remember that those "Made in the USA" and "Made in Canada" labels keep our people in jobs.

you know that bag may be worth something some day! I might just hang onto it.
That is just so unfortunate. But happening more and more. Where are those jobs going to come from now to support those families...

Very sad.

The linked article quotes a Canadian professor on the subject of the closing-

"The branch-plant thing is a
legacy of the protective tariff,” said Martin. “The only reason those
plants were there was to get around Canadian tariff barriers. The plants didn’t make sense in
the first place and they certainly don’t in this day and age when
manufacturing has become so global."

An interesting explanation, especially when you consider that this Canadian Kellogg plant is only a few hundred miles from Battle Creek, MI, where Kellogg is headquartered. The difference is that there's a border in-between.

In the case of Schneiders, I read that this plant was closed because the facility was too old and inefficient. The work was transferred to new and modern Schneiders facility in a nearby Canadian town. The new facility will have more employees than the closed location.

The Labatt's brewery, one of the big three in Canada, which used to be owned and headquartered in London ... is now a branch of a South American conglomerate.

On a recent tour we learned that they produce truckloads of beer with only a half dozen or so workers in the brewery.

Several years ago factories that used to have, say, 500 workers mechanized and robotized (often with government help) so that they produced the same amount of goods (or more) with about 100 workers (or fewer).

Robots don't pay income tax ... so the government lost 4/5 of the income tax that the workers of those plants had provided, earlier.

Instead of increasing the tax levels on such corporations, our government has reduced tax on major corporations from about 29% to about 16% ... one of the lowest levels in the OECD countries.

The governments ( both Fed and Provincial) been shrinking the services that they provided earlier, as well.

Earlier, they allowed a credit to shareholders with regard to taxes that the corporations had already paid, so that the same dollar of profit wasn't taxed twice.

As the tax rate on corporations went down recently ... one would expect that the tax rate on the shareholders with regard to each of those dollars of passed-through profit would rise.

But - it didn't! In 2005, if a "taxpayer"'s only income was dividends on shares of Canadian companies, s/he was tax-free until the income was about $28, - 30,000.00.

In 2006, the "taxpayer" whose sole income was dividends on Canadian corporations was tax-free until $46,345., according to "Canadian MoneySaver" magazine of July 2006, about page 22, and higher than that if one had a no/low income spouse, and/or other dependents.

Mr. Harper's gift to his wealthy friends.

In the light of our having a federal election coming up this October (or maybe earlier, should the government so choose) ... those of you Canadians having a struggle to get by might like to draw that policy of theirs to the attention of your local Member of Parliament. If s/he's a member of the ruling party, s/he might find it a bit difficult to justify ... and if a member of a non-governmental party, as ammunition to embarrass such people as might deserve it.

This writer is, by the way, a shareholder in several mainly Canadian corporations ... but figures that fair is fair.

ole joyfuelled ... with assistance from the occasional dividend-provided lunch

Labatts is owned by AB-Inbev, a large brewing company that formed through a series of large mergers over the last 15 years. The AB is Anheuser-Busch, formerly a large US based brewer, now one of the constituent parts. The combined company with multinational elements is based in Belgium.

I'm sure none of the Labatts shareholders needed a gun to their heads to agree to accept the purchase of their shares at a good profit.

Factories are mechanized to reduce costs. Take the brewery - customers expect that the price of a beer is $5, rather than $10 that would result if that brewery still operated with many multiples-more employees and no automation as it did years ago.

Maybe up through the 1970s, unskilled, under-educated and untrained job seekers might have expected that factory jobs in many areas could provide them with lifetime employment. Those days are long, long gone. Today's young people need to understand that jobs come from having a trade skill or a college-derived profession. Other than a few lucky ones, those lacking such training will see little more than minimum wage jobs. Some will do even less well. It's reality.

This is the same thing that's been going on in the USA for several years now. It's not just unskilled worker either. All the management lose their jobs too snide! Sadly there are more people than there are jobs here anymore...skilled or unskilled! The colleges are pumping out the kids faster than there are jobs! My SIL worked for one of those companies that went to China to open a plant and she was not unskilled, she had worked there for over 20 years and was a buyer for the company! She had a nice high paying job...not anymore!