Rich, red ketchup was a part of my boyhood diet. Every time a bottle of it was purchased for me, a bottle of HP sauce was purchased for my brother. In those very early years, my food choices were based on the sense of sight. HP sauce was brown; I didn't like it. Ketchup was red; I liked it. I particularly liked Heinz Ketchup. Before I was 10, I had learned it was made in Leamington, Ont. I had visions then of the ketchup factory and the workers in it as happy as Santa's elves. I had visions of farmers all around the factory trundling wheelbarrows full of big red tomatoes to the factory door. They were happy, too. I had no doubt that the happy arrangement would go on forever.
Last month came the announcement that the Leamington factory will close. This was followed by this announcement from me to all who would listen: "I will never again consume Heinz Ketchup." The venerable company has been purchased by a United States-Brazilian partnership. The first concern of the new owners was to take their ketchup making to whatever places they could find where elves would work for peanuts. Apparently they will make what used to be my favourite ketchup somewhere in the United States. I give them credit - but not much - for not selecting India, China, South Korea or the Gaza Strip.
Such changes come with their stylized justifications. We hear about efficiency, shareholder concerns and wage differentials. I'm not listening. What I see in this corporate decision, and in other moves to de-industrialize Canada, is corporate bullying.
I learned about bullying when I was very young. I was a target because I was underweight, had the courage of a bunny rabbit and muscles like pipecleaners. If I told my big brother about it, the bullying stopped immediately. He was very protective of both me and himself. Whenever I behaved like a self-righteous young prig, he tapped me gently on the head with a baseball bat. (I might find that kind of treatment beneficial even today.)
The trouble in and around Leamington is the lack of a big brother. It seems to me that Canada is so busy courting foreign investment that governments invite the presence of foreign bullies. Then the bullying is accepted in order to attract more foreign investment.
One of the problems in Canada, so multi-national corporations say, is that the loonie hovers too closely to the value of the American dollar. This is like saying success is failure.
Corporate decision makers can't see too far into the future. This week a Republican congressman began to advocate publicly that legislated minimum wages be increased.
He said when people are so poorly paid that they can't afford the necessities of life, taxpayers bail them out. If a Republican realizes that, we may be seeing the beginning of a trend. The truth is very simple. Pay less for food and more in taxes or pay less in taxes and more for food. If wages in the American food industry go up, will Heinz factories move offshore?
Next summer, I will grow more tomatoes. Next fall, I will make a whole tub full of ketchup from organically-grown heritage tomatoes. More and more, locally processed food from locally grown crops seems like a good idea - nutritionally, economically and politically.
