Canadian Firm Cries Foul Over Buy American Provision on State Contract

(The Canadian Press – Julian Beltrame)

A Canadian manufacturer says his company is being shut out of a bidding process in Maryland by the same “Buy American’’ policies that President Obama has assured Canada is not protectionist. Now the Toronto-area company which does a majority of its sales with the United States says it may have to move operations south of the border to save the business.

And what is occurring in Maryland may only be the tip of the iceberg given the current protectionist sentiment in the U.S. Congress, says the president of Hayward Gordon Ltd., a Toronto-area company that produces industrial-grade water pumping and mixing equipment. “This is shutting out any non-American company from doing business on any public infrastructure,” said John Hayward, whose Halton Hills, Ont. company employs 75 people.

Hayward said he had been working for two years to bid on the Maryland water treatment project, which he believes was potentially worth about $200,000 for his company. Now he’s been shut out.

The Maryland sanitary bid document calls on contractors to “provide a list of all iron, steel, and manufactured goods not produced in the United States to be precluded from the (federal) funding.’’ Hayward said no contractor would stand a chance of winning the bid if they included any non-American suppliers.

More importantly, he says, he may have to shift production south of the border to keep selling to U.S. markets which represent about 75 per cent of his water pump sales. “We just spent $7 million on a brand new factory two years ago that’s going to be gutted as a result of this,” he explained. Read more here.