JOSHUA ALLAN
The 1510 West
It was a “worst-case scenario” decision when Pointe Claire-based pantyhose manufacturer Sheertex made the call to temporarily lay off around 40 per cent of its employees last Wednesday. The decision was made amid ongoing threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to impose 25-per-cent tariffs on Canadian goods entering the U.S. – a move that would severely impact the company’s revenues.
To Pointe Claire Mayor Tim Thomas, this regrettable development hammers home the need for Canadians across the country to support Canadian businesses by making the extra effort to choose Canadian products and brands while shopping to reduce the blow from U.S. tariffs.
“We’ve got to learn how to support ourselves and support Canadian and our local businesses,” Thomas said in an interview. “It’s a no-brainer.”
The decision “was not made lightly,” said Katherine Homuth, the company’s founder and CEO referring to the layoffs of about 90 of the 350 workers at her facility on the Trans-Canada Highway. Her statement posted on LinkedIn went on to explain the company will look to re-hire its impacted employees within the next six months.
About 85 per cent of Sheertex’s total revenue comes from U.S. sales. The company, Homuth explained, is currently rushing to move as much inventory as it can across the border before the end of the month.
She also explained that Sheertex’s business-to-business sales done in the U.S. are already tariffed at 16 per cent, as more than 9 per cent of the raw materials used in the company’s tights and leggings are sourced from outside Canada and the U.S. The tariffs being threatened by the Trump administration would also eliminate the de minimis exemption – a loophole which allows direct-to-consumer sales of less than $800 to cross the border duty free. Altogether, this would mean a 41-per-cent tariff on all Sheertex products sold in the U.S.
“The financial burden is now immense,” Homuth wrote.
This panic over tariffs in Canada’s business community should serve as a wakeup call, Thomas added. “We’ve been avoiding this reality for a long time now – for decades.”
According to Statistics Canada, about 76 per cent of Canada’s total international exports are shipped to the U.S., valued at around $590 billion in 2024.
In Quebec alone, the U.S. accounts for around 70 per cent of exports. According to the Institut de la statistique du Québec, the province shipped around $87.3 billion worth of exports to the U.S. in 2023.
“Canada has got to start to look at itself and start to (increase) interprovincial trade and support locally, but also support Canadian,” Thomas added.
Since the start of the U.S.’s tariff talks, Thomas said he has seen many Pointe Claire residents step up and choose to support Canadian products over U.S. imports. He recalls one recent instance when in a store “and somebody said (buy Canadian) out loud to everybody in the store, and everybody nodded their heads and started behaving accordingly. Everybody was buying Canadian.”
In a subsequent LinkedIn post published last Thursday evening, Homuth described how she was “incredibly moved” by the support her company had received. She called on consumers to reach out to Canadian retailers, such as Shopper’s Drug Mart (Pharmaprix in Quebec) and Jean Coutu to encourage them to work with Canadian-based manufacturers. The support “gives me hope that we might find a path to reduce our U.S. market dependency and bring our team back to work,” she added.