A longtime rural resident, I use my 60 plus years of life learning to opinionate here and elsewhere on the “interweb” on everything from politics to environmental issues. A believer in reasonable discourse rather than unhelpful attacks I try to give positive input to the blogesphere, so feel free to comment upon rural issues or anything else posted here. But don’t be surprised if you comments get zapped if you are not polite in your replys.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Flag Flap Insulting

Love him or hate him Peter Kormos is right on this one, it is indeed an insult to Ontarians when their MPPs start handing out flags made in China.

“We got our new batch of flags today and there it was on the label: ‘Made in China,’ ” Kormos said.

Previously, Queen’s Park bought full-sized flags made by Flying Colours International in Toronto. Kormos said the company has a factory that employs more than 100 people, most of whom have worked there for nearly 20 years. The Legislative Assembly’s procurement office put out a tender and chose a cheaper alternative to Flying Colours. The Toronto-made flags cost $18 each. The Chinese ones are $13.
“So for five bucks in difficult economic times we’re threatening the jobs of people in Ontario,” said Kormos, who vowed to return the Chinese flags and buy new ones from Flying Colours. “These are flags we give to legions and schools and the Girl Guides. And it’s important to them. I cannot give them an Ontario flag made in China. I won’t do it. It would be insulting.”
Ontario MPPs have to buy their flags, along with other items like office supplies, through the procurement office to take advantage of bulk purchasing.

Its bad enough that those of us looking to buy our own Canadian flag have great difficulty in finding one NOT made in China, but when our MPPs are supplied with these symbols of our Sovereignty made by a foreign company when we have local suppliers things are getting bad indeed. Especially when so many Ontarians are loosing their jobs and governments are considering bailing out American owned companies (the auto sector). I wonder where Ottawa gets theirs?

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