Canadian PPE manufacturers frustrated by Ottawa’s contract with American company

Dozens of Canadian companies who stepped up to meet demands for protective personal equipment during the pandemic have been forced to close or pivot to new industries.

This comes as the federal government has signed deals to purchase PPE from a massive American company and a Quebec operation.

“It’s frustrating,” said Barry Hunt, the president of the Canadian Association of PPE Manufacturers. “It’s heartbreaking to see these companies going out of business.”

In 2020, around 100 companies began manufacturing PPE across Canada to meet the needs of the federal government. The hope was to create a domestic manufacturing industry to supply PPE in Canada long term.

“This would create a domestic industry, using domestic materials, labour, domestic everything, and to make sure that it would be sustainable and in the future, not just for this pandemic, but for all pandemics to come,” said Hunt.

But three years after the pandemic began, Hunt says 90 per cent of those companies have either shut their doors or moved to other industries. He says this is all in part due to Ottawa’s deal with American company 3M and Quebec-based Medicom.

“It blindsided everyone here in the Canadian industry,” he said. “My company alone signed three different contracts with government to develop things specifically to meet this challenge – not one order.”

Hunt says companies invested a lot of time and resources to answer the federal government’s call.

Paul Sweeny, who runs Swenco in Waterloo, Ont., invested in a 50,000 square-foot facility, which includes 11 machines, an automated packaging system and a 17,000 square-foot cleaning room.

Sweeny says they have the ability to make between 20-25 million masks a month, but without help, it’s sitting idle.

“We’ve been developing new products and designing new things,” said Sweeny. “We are ready to go, but we need support. We need a government to step in and either pay us off for what we’ve invested or give us business so we can keep our equipment and machines running.

“The feds aren’t interested in anything, whether it is green or not, it doesn’t matter to them.”

Winnipeg-based PADM Medical is the only company in North America that produces sustainable and compostable masks that meets level-three facemask testing requirements. It created the first Canadian Standards Association (CSA) approved reusable N95-level half-mask respirator in Canada.

Martin Petrak, President & CEO, PADM Group of Companies on March 16, 2023. (Credit: CityNews/Alex Karpa)

President and CEO Martin Petrak says the feds are not only missing a big opportunity to invest in domestic companies but missing an opportunity to be leaders around the world.

“This is where it would be very helpful for the federal government to help us around that procurement process and help us look at how we can create opportunities for domestic manufacturers,” said Petrak.

“There’s a big role for SMEs to play in domestic manufacturing in the long term.”

Hunt says if another pandemic hits, Canada will not be prepared.

“When you need N95 respirators for the entire population, what are you going to do if you don’t have no domestic manufacturer?” he said. “There’s not a country in the world that’s going to send them to you, because they are going to be protecting their own citizens. Good luck.”