TORONTO —
With customers having retreated to their homes in the wake of COVID-19, distilleries across North America are finding a new way to serve the public: by using their facilities and high-proof alcohol to make hand sanitizer.
There have been reports from all over the country of distilleries putting their equipment to use in order to help out front-line workers and address shortages in hand sanitizer within their communities.
The key thing when it comes to hand sanitizer is alcohol. According to the CDC, hand sanitizer is more effective if it is at least 60 per cent alcohol. Distilleries are primed to be able to manufacture the product.
In Ontario alone, there are distilleries in Windsor, Perth, Toronto and other places across the province contributing to the cause.
Garrett Kean, the assistant production manager at Top Shelf Distillers in Perth, said they are doing their best to follow the specific formula dictated by the World Health Organization to make sure their hand sanitizer is up to snuff. The WHO formula calls for a mixture of glycerol, hydrogen peroxide, distilled water, and either ethanol or isopropyl alcohol.
Not all of the ingredients are easy to come by — Top Shelf had to use coconut oil in place of glycerol in their first batch.
They started a fundraiser in order to help them acquire supplies and meet their goal of delivering to front-line workers first, promising that those who donate will also receive a personal bottle of hand sanitizer once health care workers have received what they need.
In Toronto, the Spirit of York distillery is focusing its new line of production on delivering to local residents in need. Specifically, they are offering their hand sanitizer for free to those over 65 years of age and those who can’t afford it.
Anyone who is able to pay will only be charged $3 a bottle.
They said they were inspired by stories of people hoarding hand sanitizer or Lysol wipes in the hopes of selling them at a higher price and turning a profit.
“We decided to go the other way,” said Gerry Guitor, the founder of Spirit of York.
“Our mandate is always giving back to the community … its part of our core values, so when we saw what was happening we decided we needed to something.”
Ethanol that they normally use to make gin and vodka is now being used entirely on their hand sanitizer production.
Geoff Dillon, the founder of Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers, which is housed in a small town just west of St. Catharines, said that his team was inspired last week while they were “sitting around … kind of depressed, watching the news.”
They realized that they “had a building full of alcohol,” he told CTV News Channel on Sunday.
“We thought we could do more (to help).”
They started out making hand sanitizer, but switched to a spray-on disinfectant when they ran out of some of the supplies they needed.
“We’re doing an 80 per cent solution right now,” Dillon said. “It’s de-natured, so you can’t drink it.”
They’ve partnered with local companies who are going to be providing delivery vehicles, and then they hope to get their product out “to essential workers who need it.”
In Nova Scotia, the Ironworks Distillery in Lunenburg has shifted some of their production into hand sanitizer, although they are still open for business for online orders of spirits.
Their bottles of hand sanitizer are being sold for $5 each, with the proceeds all going to the Lunenberg Fisherman’s Memorial Hospital Auxiliary.
In Saskatchewan, two Saskatoon distilleries are manufacturing and distributing personal hand sanitizer to all emergency and frontline workers in Saskatoon free of charge.
Stumbletown Distillery partnered with Lucky Bastard Distillery to produce the essential product. They were approached by Saskatchewan Blue Cross after word got out of their efforts, who agreed to cover the labelling costs for the sanitizer. Paramedics picked up an order last week.
On the west coast is another partnership, but this time, between two companies that normally make very different products.
Victoria Distillers is working with a local cosmetics business called Nezza Naturals in order to figure out how to convert leftover alcoholic byproduct from the distilling process into hand sanitizer. The distillery provides the alcohol, and Nezza Naturals blends it in with the other ingredients necessary to create the hand sanitizer.
Currently, their focus is to serve their local community and essential services staff.
More and more distilleries have been signing up for the job since the first stories of distilleries putting their equipment to use started coming out of the U.S. in mid-March.
One of the first distilleries to make public their new quest was Eight Oaks Farm Distillery in Pennsylvania, which first started filling bottles with their new sanitizer on March 16.
Owners and employees from distilleries involved in the aid process say they’ve had an overwhelming response from their local and international communities. Many have applauded the distilleries for stepping up in the wake of hand sanitizer shortages across the continent.
“There’s been a lot of tears shed here by the employees we have left,” said Dillon. “It’s been unbelievable. We have so many thousands of emails and voice mails and messages. We’re just trying to stay above water right now and get as much out as we can.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
