A manufacturer that’s been around since the 1950s has been crunching the numbers and pondering moving operations to the U.S. because of Ontario Liberal government policies.

“We don’t worry about our competition anymore,” says Jocelyn Williams Bamford, Vice President of Automatic Coating. “We fear the government.”

But instead of packing up and heading south — where their coating company has contracts with, among others, the U.S. Navy — they’ve decided to band together with other small and medium manufacturers and stand up against a provincial government that doesn’t seem to care about them.

“I’m looking for some sign from the government that they’re interested in us staying,” says Bamford, who created the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers of Ontario. They’ve already got a couple dozen companies, with more joining every week, which together represent thousands of jobs in the province.

Automatic Coating’s always been a Scarborough business, initially starting out as a laundry repair shop founded by president Brad Bamford’s father. Over the years, it’s grown to boast 75 employees, some of whom make six-figure salaries.

“The majority of our employees are new immigrants,” Jocelyn explained while giving the Sun a tour of their busy plant. “They come here, work hard, make it to management, send their kids to university.” Siva Sivarajah’s worked there since 1989, after completing a civil engineering in Sri Lanka. He now has a family home and three children in university, he proudly told the Sun.

Yet the Bamfords and their coalition partners worry that government policies are putting good jobs at risk by making Ontario just not viable for companies like theirs.

They bring out their energy bills to show the big hits they’ve faced. In April the tally was $34,000 but by May it had jumped to $42,000. The rise in costs didn’t come from increased usage, but all the extra add-ons the government’s foisted on both business and personal bills.

They’re worried about the impacts of cap and trade, which a Stikeman Elliott report calculated will cost a business of their size $127,000 annually. And that’s only the beginning.

Brad points to the combined impacts of cap and trade, rising energy costs and confusing labour policies that are squeezing out business.

“For the past two months, I spent more time on cap and trade and energy policy than I have on growing my business,” Jocelyn explains. “It’s a recipe for disaster.”

Some of the company’s patents that Brad developed include new methods of stripping and blasting coating from pipelines.

“All this equipment we developed and patented is environmentally friendly,” Jocelyn says. “I’d think we were they kind of company they’d want to keep.”

They want all of their business to stay in Scarborough, where they live and work and contribute to local causes like hospitals and junior hockey, says Brad. But moving the U.S. portion of their business across the border, which makes up about a third of their work and is something their customers down south keep recommending, looks increasingly logical.

For now, they’re committed to their community. And to getting the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers of Ontario more active and vocal.

And they’re not looking for handouts, they stress. Just policies that don’t seem designed to run them out of town.

“Better than giving us money,” says Jocelyn, “would be policies that aren’t bankrupting us.”

**********

TELL US YOUR ENERGY STORIES

We want to hear from you.

The story of the Ontario Liberals’ approach to energy policy isn’t about numbers and charts and pie-in-the-sky green promises. It’s about people. Families. Taxpayers. And we’ve already heard from a lot of people who are hurting.

For the next couple weeks I’ll be writing stories every single day about the people who are facing problems thanks to Ontario’s energy prices. How much have your bills gone up from one year to the next? Do you have to rearrange your life just to use less electricity? Did you ever think that after years of working hard and following the rules, this is how you’d be thanked?

E-mail me at afurey@postmedia.com or call me at 416-947-2445 to tell me your story.

We care about you. We’re seeing the hurt these policies are causing and we want action. We’re determined to make sure the politicians know that your story matters. Let’s do this together.