Free Trade
While Galen Weston expressed personal support for free trade with the United States, the signing of an agreement in 1988 resulted in another re-evaluation of his company’s asset mix. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, businesses that included biscuit and ice cream making, bathroom tissue manufacturing, milling, sugar refining and chocolate bar makings, were divested as domestic industries struggled to remain competitive:
“The historic east-west dynamics of the Canadian economy, as well as our small and scattered population, created structural inefficiencies in everything we did. And so, in response to free trade, we had to become competitive on our manufacturing side, which meant staying with fewer product categories and only those that could succeed on the North American scale. We restructured, we consolidated, and we did what had to be done for our long-term survival.”
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Famous quotes containing the words free and/or trade:
“I am thankful to God for this approval of the people. But while deeply grateful for this mark of their confidence in me, if I know my heart, my gratitude is free from any taint of personal triumph. I do not impugn the motives of any one opposed to me. It is no pleasure to me to triumph over any one.”
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