While I completely understand why Canadians are booing in response to the US National Anthem on occasions such as hockey games, I want to urge a different and more constructive response. It is high time we worked together to further develop our manufacturing sector. Booing will not put us in a better position in relation to our neighbours to the south, making more things here will. We know how to design and build everything from the basic necessities of life to the complex products of modern technology.
But, so much of our identity as Canadians has been tied to seeing ourselves as hewers of wood and carriers of water or in more conventional terms as suppliers of raw materials. When we do get to manufacturing it has historically been as a supplier to the US market. Most prominently, we have benefited from a set of complex supply chain arrangements spelled out in successive free trade agreements in the auto sector that see components travelling back and forth across the border multiple times, ultimately at the behest of major American carmakers. US tariffs and other forms of aggressive trade policy threaten these well-worn ways of doing things.
Many years ago Canadian engineers and aerospace workers created a supersonic jet called the Arrow that thrust Canada into the leading edge of a growing aerospace industry worldwide. When the Canadian government cancelled the project in 1959, 14,000 people were thrown out of work. The beneficiaries were the aerospace industry in California and at NASA.
Now, a second Arrow is on the scene, this time a fully electric vehicle designed at a Canadian university and assembled in the form of a working prototype with leadership of Ontario’s Automobile Parts Manufactures Association. The Arrow, featured at the 2023 Canadian International Auto Show, has 97% Canadian components from 50 different Canadian parts manufacturers.
With the sword of Damocles of tariffs and aggressive US trade policy hanging over our heads Canada needs to develop its own manufacturing sector and especially a manufacturing sector that contributes to lowering carbon emissions. Arrow 2.0 developed through the initiative of the APMA, the genius of young Canadian designers and engineers and the hard won craft and skill of Canadian automobile parts manufacturers is an ideal project to lead the way. We need to translate this working prototype into production at scale for Canada and for the world.
If we insist on old ideas and habitual patterns of doing things we will be sitting ducks in the new era that we face. Of course, the usual pundits are more than ready to dismiss the idea of a made in Canada vehicle. In a February 13 CBC News post entitled Can Canada just build its own cars?, the University of Windsor’s Peter Frise calls a made in Canada vehicle a cute idea that is not, however, sustainable recalling how industry previously slammed the door. In the same CBC post, Dennis Darby, CEO of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters cites Australia’s failure to produce its own vehicle and laments the impracticality of building a vehicle from scratch. If Uncle Sam is going to give us a hard time, perhaps we need to peddle our parts elsewhere appears to be the most flexible response of experts to date.
What if times have changed and they are a changing worldwide? What if Canadians are prepared for much bolder ideas and made in Canada initiatives. What if new players are willing to come to the table such as Indigenous entrepreneurs and environmental organizations? What if governments at all levels, seeing a new set of circumstances, have a change of heart and are prepared to invest in such a project? What if some of the many progressive entrepreneurs in Canada step up? What if it is the time for the Arrow to finally fly and hit the target?
Arden Henley, Ed.D.
Green Technology Education Centre
Vancouver, BC
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