U.S. tariffs put Peninsula Plastics expansion plans on hold

Jake Bolton says U.S. tariffs could cost his company 30 to 40 per cent of its revenue if they stay in place.

Bolton, president of Peninsula Plastics Ltd., a Fort Erie manufacturer of consumer plastic products, said the company was preparing to go from five-day to seven-day operations and planned to hold a career fair this year to staff a new weekend shift.

The company shelved the career fair and dropped the plan to add the shift after U.S. President Donald Trump applied a 50 per cent tariff on August 22 to a long list of Canadian goods, including household plastics.

“Personally, I don’t think these tariffs are sustainable long term,” Bolton told Fort Erie Radio. “This is more, I think, something we have to wait out.”

Staff at the plant checked its products one at a time against hundreds of tariff codes to find out which ones are affected, Bolton said.

A loss that size would put the plant’s roughly 100 permanent jobs at risk, along with the temporary workers the company hires from Employment Professionals Canada, but Bolton said Peninsula Plastics is still hiring and plans no layoffs.

“There’s a lot of people that could be affected if these tariffs stick around for a while,” he said. “And I don’t think it’s time for anybody to really panic just yet.”

The August 22 duties are the third round of tariffs the Trump administration has imposed on Canadian goods this year. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump’s emergency-powers tariffs in February, and his administration replaced them weeks later with a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian goods that fall outside the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement.

Bolton said that pattern has stalled the company’s long-term spending, because a manufacturer that builds a new product line for the Canadian market could lose it if the tariffs disappear and American goods return at their old prices.

“When we talk about hiring, talk about building for the future, everything just gets put on hold,” he said.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has said Canada will match the August 22 tariffs dollar for dollar starting September 8. Bolton said he is waiting on that deadline before rescheduling the career fair, because the two governments could settle the dispute once Canada’s counter tariffs take effect.

The tariffs have already sent Canadian retailers looking for domestic suppliers. The Home Hardware and Home Depot stores Peninsula Plastics sells to stock shelves full of American products, Bolton said, and Canadian shoppers now ask for Canadian-made goods, which gives his company a chance at items it could never price competitively before.

“In the wake of this whole catastrophe, there is opportunity and although I don’t want to scale our business down and have to deal with that, long term, it really could be good for a lot of companies,” he said.

Filling those orders would require tooling and production capacity the company does not have yet, he said.

Bolton said he wants Ottawa to hold its position even though his own company stands to lose money in the meantime.

“I hope Carney doesn’t back down to this crazy presidency and the people that he has working for them,” he said. “I hope we stick to our guns and I hope we start building Canada.”

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