‘When people around the world own a Canada Goose jacket, one of the things that make them feel special about the product is that I think they feel they own a piece of Canada’ Dani Reiss president and CEO, Canada Goose

Paulina Botelho’s nimble fingers push the nearly complete Canada Goose parka rhythmically through her sewing machine.

Botelho has been a garment worker at Canada Goose since 1966 and, at 67, she loves her job. She makes a comfortable living at the west-end Toronto plant.

She has a home in Mississauga, she has raised a family, outfitting them all in Canada Goose’s stylish, down-filled parkas.

“This is my passion — sewing. Back home in the Azores, I worked for a tailor. I came to Canada and ended up at this company,” she says. Botelho and another 100 workers produce 400 coats here weekly.

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Canada Goose is a “Made in Canada” success story. The company earns $150 million in sales annually and their 60,000 (5,574 sq. m) square foot factory on Castlefield Rd. is bursting at the seams. The company is soon moving around the corner to a larger facility, almost twice as big.

This family business, started by Polish émigré Sam Tick in 1957 and now run by his grandson Dani Reiss, is one of fewer than 3,000 companies that manufacture clothes in Canada’s garment industry. Most are considered small or medium-sized, according to Industry Canada.

For a decade, the total value of apparel made in Canada has been on a steady decline, ever since the removal of tariff barriers in 2003.

From 2007 to 2011, apparel manufacturing’s gross domestic product fell by 8.5 per cent from $1.9 billion to $1.3 billion. Shipments and exports have dwindled while apparel imports have increased.

For example, in 2003, Bangladesh sent $330 million worth of garments to Canada; by 2012 it was $1.2 billion.

Ten years ago, almost all the companies still manufacturing in Canada abandoned the trade after Canada’s Least-Developed Country Tariff program removed duties on imports from 49 countries, including Bangladesh, making it next to impossible to manufacture in Canada and remain competitive.

Unless you can sell Canada, like Dani Reiss does.

“No doubt, it would be less expensive to produce offshore,” he admits.

But that isn’t an option for Reiss as Made in Canada is a pillar of Canada Goose’s brand.

“You can’t separate the point of manufacture from the product itself. When people around the world own a Canada Goose jacket, one of the things that make them feel special about the product is that I think they feel they own a piece of Canada,” says Reiss, 39.

The parkas are assembled exclusively in this country. Canada Goose owns two large factories, one in Toronto and one in Winnipeg. It has contracts with another 20 Canadian factories. Altogether, it employs close to 1,000 people.

Where clothes come from matters to consumers, argues Reiss — especially since the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh six months ago, which killed 1,129 people and maimed many more.

“I think people’s attitudes have been in the process of changing for a long time. Even going back 10 years ago, when the general sentiment was that people didn’t care where stuff was made. We didn’t believe that was true. We believed they did care and not only did they care, they would care more . . . events like Bangladesh pushes people even further,” he says.

Much of what goes in a Canada Goose parka is sourced in Canada. The coyote fur around the collar is bought from northern trappers; the insulating down is a byproduct of birds processed by the homegrown food industry. Velcro fasteners are local but the fabric for the outer shell is not — it is globally sourced.

Consumers check labels for as much information as they can about their clothes, says Brock University professor Kendra Coulter, and ethical sourcing is gaining ground with shoppers.

“I’d love to see ‘Fair Trade’ clothing — we do it for coffee and chocolate. Why can’t we do it, on a large scale, for garments?” she asks.

She wonders if what is needed is an overhaul on how clothes are labeled in Canada.

The Textile Labeling Act governs the labeling, sale, importation and advertising of consumer textiles. It is policed by the Competition Bureau of Canada. The act requires that textiles all have accurate and meaningful labeling information to help consumers make informed decisions.

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The “Made in Canada” guidelines issued by the Competition Bureau describe generally how assess “Made in Canada” or “Product of Canada” claims are assessed, says the bureau’s Alexa Keating.

A piece of clothing labeled “Made in Canada” must meet specific requirements. Most important is that the last substantial transformation of the product occurs in Canada. At least 51 per cent of the total direct costs of producing or manufacturing the goods — such as labour in sewing and stitching — must take place here. When the “Made in Canada” label is used, qualifying information such as “Made in Canada with imported parts” must be included.

There is also a “Product of Canada” label or stamp that is legal only if 98 per cent of the total direct costs of producing or making the goods have occurred in Canada. The last substantial transformation of the product must also happen here.

The act also stipulates that if a manufacturer uses a “Made in Canada with imported parts” label, it must disclose where the fabrics came from, says Keating.

Here’s the problem, industry insiders say: Manufacturers are loathe to attach a label that essentially says “Sewn in Canada with parts imported from India, China and Viet Nam.”

The Competition Bureau doesn’t actively police labeling, which essentially runs on an honour system. The bureau only investigates if a complaint is made.

But the bureau refuses to answer questions on how many complaints it receives regarding “Made in Canada” claims.

“Unfortunately, I’m unable to provide information on how many complaints we receive. By law, the bureau is obliged to conduct its investigations confidentially. Therefore, we cannot confirm whether or not the bureau has received any complaints on this subject,” Keating wrote in an email.

Industry insiders say the only people complaining about a Canadian company using false “Made in Canada” labels are other competing manufacturers.

Without proper clarity or policing, “Made in Canada” is as much a regulatory term as an emotional or marketing tool, says Robert Ott, the chair of Ryerson University’s School of Fashion. Ott was for 20 years responsible for manufacturing women’s clothing at a major brand.

The key thing to remember, he adds, is that Canada no longer produces any textiles to make clothing — so adding countries on the label does not make much sense.

“It is almost a moot point,” he says. “It’s all about marketing. There is better perceived value here.”

The fabrics, fillings and content of garments, coats and especially upholstery can be sourced from multiple countries but form a bit of a mystery.

“It is so complex. It is almost like looking at a worm and trying to figure out, ‘Where is the neck, the head, the abdomen and the stomach?’ ” Ott says.

“This is really about misleading labeling. It may give you a competitive advantage. ‘Made in Canada’ is meant to support a positive feeling. It is patriotic, it makes you feel good,” he says.

By contrast, “Made in Bangladesh” labels have negative connotations such as exploited workers in unsafe factories.

“So much of this is about perception of where things are made and not the realities of it.”

Some apparel manufacturers and retailers have chosen to remain in Canada. One is Tristan, the 40-year-old Montreal retailer, founded by the husband-and-wife team of Gilles Fortin and Denise Deslauriers.

The company, which has 50 stores across Canada and 800 employees, made a value judgment to stay in Canada 10 years ago, when it bought two garment factories two hours east of Montreal, says Lili Fortin, the couple’s daughter and director of business development.

The firm now manufactures one-third of its line in Canada, including all of its women’s suits. It is also one of the only employers in the small Quebec town of Cookshire, a hamlet near Sherbrooke.

The 25,000 square-foot (2,322 sq. m), two-storey, factory the Star visited is a modern, computerized plant, set back into the rolling hills of Quebec farm country.

Most of the women who work here have spent a lifetime in the garment trade. They drive to work from modest homes nearby and start their shifts at 7.30 a.m., finishing at 4:00 p.m. and earning, on average, $15 to $16 an hour, depending on their level of expertise.

Tristan’s Cookshire factory manufactures women’s suits, a complicated process of almost 170 steps.

Each sewing station has a desk with a Brother sewing machine on top of it. All the machines look identical, like the kind in your grandmother’s kitchen, but each is different. To the side of the machine is a small computer that keeps track of every garment piece as it moves through the station, measuring out the cost per unit.

There are many advantages for manufacturing locally. Owning a factory means a company does not have to pay shipping costs, wait for containers to arrive or fly garments by air at a prohibitive price.

Tristan’s suits arrive directly from the factory on hangers. If there is a sudden change in production schedules or a problem at the factory, all management has to do is hop in a car and head two hours down the highway to the factory.

“My dad was the visionary. He saw everyone moving production out of the country, saying it was too expensive here. He saw that if no one invested here, we’d lose the skills, the knowledge and the know-how of all of this skilled labour. Once you lose it, it is hard to bring it back,” says Lili Fortin as she leaves Tristan’s Montreal office to drive to Cookshire.

While Tristan’s fashion lines are designed in-house in Montreal. Only women’s and men’s suits and coats are made in Canada with fabrics sourced in Italy and France.

The rest of its clothing is outsourced to 60 factories worldwide, mostly in southern China.

When asked about corporate responsibility and Tristan, Fortin says there is no substitute for cultivating personal relationships with the factory owners.

“We have been working with these people for years. They trust us and we trust them. That is the best piece of paper.”

Tristan’s mid-range-priced suits are the core of the company’s Made in Canada label. The Cookshire factory produces 5,000 blazers a week from the 80,000 metres of fabric from Italy and China.

A Tristan woman’s jacket costs about $225, says brand manager Marine Godfroy.

“This is a choice. We’ve proved it is entirely possible to produce a smartly fitted suit with a good cut at a good price, made in Canada. But we can’t compete with a T-shirt that is $4,” sighs Godfroy.