When the MSC Vega docked at the Port of Los Angeles on Nov. 12, among the thousands of shipping containers on board were more than 136 tonnes of cargo destined for The Brick, one of Canada’s largest furniture and appliance outlets.
The 31 containers in that shipment held fridges sold under The Brick’s Brada label and made by Changhong Meiling — a Chinese company on a U.S. sanctions list for allegedly using forced labour from China’s Uighur population.
It was one of nearly 400 shipments since 2018 from Chinese manufacturers accused of serious human rights violations to Canadian businesses, a joint investigation by the Toronto Star and Guelph Mercury Tribune has found.
Canada’s China Class screwed people out of jobs by outsourcing manufacturing. Benefiting from slave labour is a feature not a bug in their circles. These are the people who govern us and insist they have our best interests at heart.
This is a Globe article from 2003 – go incognito – Appliance makers in Canada a dying breed
John Wood looks around him at the remnants of the Canadian appliance industry.
In 1964, he said, 37 Canadian companies manufactured washing machines, stoves and refrigerators. Today, there are four. Workers in the industry used to total 10,000. Now, there are 2,500.
By next year, Mr. Wood said, he’ll be looking at just three manufacturers.
“It’s sad,” said Mr. Wood, president and chief executive officer of Guelph, Ont.-based W.C. Wood Co. Ltd., the last Canadian-owned appliance manufacturer in the country. “We’re the only one in North America that is still family owned.”
He looks at a list of famous old brands. Inglis, Westinghouse, Kenmore, Beaumark, Admiral, Frigidaire, Moffat and McClary are either gone or made by a contract manufacturer, somewhere, anywhere in the world. And he wonders what will happen over the next year or so when two more companies pull back.
