The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerability of Canada’s supply chain. A vulnerability that Jon Stanfield, president and CEO of Stanfield’s Ltd., says proves the country needs to protect and expand its domestic manufacturing capacity. In an interview with Atlantic Business Magazine editor Dawn Chafe on June 12, Stanfield said that Canada’s manufacturing sector has been “beaten up” by free trade deals in the late ‘80s and ‘90s. “We let it go too far,” he says of the country’s reliance on international suppliers. That left Canada without a readily available domestic supply of essential personal protective equipment (PPE) when the pandemic

Take a mental step back in time to the beginning of March. Serial entrepreneur Lisa Drader Murphy is preparing to head to her home in France for some creative downtime. She’s also working on a new collection of designs for her self-named design house and anticipating a busy season for her hospitality enterprise. Terry Malley, the president and CEO of specialty vehicle manufacturer Malley Industries, was full throttle — but he sensed some storm clouds on his horizon. The coronavirus had already begun to affect Chinese manufacturing companies, some of whom were part of his supply chain. “We expected some