Reshoring

 

   I have fallen behind again in my postings and the cartoon above provided me with a way of producing a short one about the subject of Reshoring.  I recalled running across that word in a headline in The Globe and Mail and jotted it down. The headline: "Reshoring: Reshoring Canada to Advocate for Less Supply-Chain Reliance on Risky Countries," Steven Chase, April 14, 2021. It is a timely topic since the automobile factories nearby have been idled because of a lack of computer chips which come from off shore.  Since many of our potato chips are also likely to be produced elsewhere, perhaps we should be worried more about the origins of our food supplies. 

   Reshoring still stumps the spell checker, but basically it is referring to the radical idea that we should consider making and producing, in-country, the things we need and even those things we want.  Generally the word is seen in the context of discussions about manufactured goods, but it is not a bad idea to consider applying it to the food we eat. Once we assume some control over our own food sources, we can then tackle the supply chain problem related to getting the domestic labour required to produce or harvest what we need for our tables. 

   According to the article, here is what Reshoring Canada is up to:
"Former Ontario economic development minister Sandra Pupatello and former federal industry minister Tony Clement are launching a new advocacy group to promote returning critical manufacturing to Canada and rebuilding supply chains so they don't rely on increasingly risky countries such as China.The venture, Reshoring Canada, aims to be a non-partisan repository and advocate of ideas to refashion supply chains to make them safer and more secure."  The website for the advocacy group: Reshoring Canada. 

  Since "reshoring" looks odd to me (and still does to the spell checker) I went looking for early uses of the term and found some about a decade ago. It appears in this Globe article back in June 2012 - "The Factory 'Reshoring' Opportunity: Faced With Rising Wages in Asia and Higher Shipping Costs, Companies are Moving Production Back to North America." It is found in an article in 2010 in an article in the Wall Street Journal where it is also referred to as Onshoring, ("Caterpillar Joins 'Onshoring' Trend," March 12.)

  Prior to those instances, one does find 'reshoring' often, but it relates to another problem that has to be dealt with - fixing shorelines. 

Sources: 

    Many Americans are embracing "Buy American" which implies that the items bought are made in America (or more precisely, in the United States. If they really mean "Buy American," then perhaps we have a chance to make things for them as well, although we will have to compete with the South Americans.)
See the Reshoring Institute and Reshoring Initiative. 

The Bonus: 
   Revisit The Red Green Show and the sketches of "Handyman Corner" for more ideas about improving our manufacturing sector.
   During the pandemic, as food disappeared from the grocery shelves people began wondering not about where it had gone, but from where it had come.  There are now webinars being offered about topics such as "Basic Ancestral Skills" and they are being watched by not just survivalists. If you had no idea, for example, that vegetables came from fields and not cans, then you might want to watch one. Here is some advice as a sample. If you want to know if that road kill is safe to eat you consider these questions: "Are its eyes clear, or are they clouded over?..." "Are the guts blown?" "How many insects are on it?" That this wisdom is not taken from a manual written by a member of one of the TEOTWAWKI tribes now found in the U.S. northwest, but from the sophisticated urban publication, The New Yorker, may surprise and even upset you. ("Survival Dept." Antonia Hitchens, p.19, Sept. 13, 2021.)

"Making Light of Heavy Things Since 2016"