HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2012-10-04, Page 18PAGE 18. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2012.Walton business celebrates 20th anniversary
Trudeau discusses ties that bind Canadians
A Walton-area business is cele-brating an anniversary this year thatits owner thought might never come.Barmy Tech, operating out of theWalton Little School building, is aHuron County success story that justkeeps growing according to owner
Dorothy Cummings, even in its 20th
year.
The business began shortly before
Cummings became involved. It
began as a side project for two
University of Waterloo students try-
ing to make money over the summer.
However, when the students went
back to school, Cummings stepped
in and bought the business in 1992,
which, at the time, she said, didn’t
consist of much other than the
Barmy Tech name.
Cummings said through buying
the business, she inherited a sewing
machine and two rolls of fabric.
She was encouraged to buy the
business by her husband and while
unsure about the business end of the
business, Cummings knew the
sewing aspect of the job wouldn’t be
a problem.
“I had sewn in 4-H clubs, I was
always sewing. I made my own
clothes, so I knew I could do it,” she
said in an interview with The
Citizen.
While she had the sewing down,
Cummings said she didn’t know how
to get Barmy Tech off the ground, so
once she was set up, she just sat bythe phone and waited, but it didn’tring.It wasn’t until she made up a batchof canvas bags as free giveaways thatword of the quality of the bags beganto spread. One of the company’sbiggest early supporters, she said,was the CIBC branch in Brussels.That was when business began to
take off, Cummings said, with proj-
ects then sprouting up through vari-
ous universities as well.
Another one of her early projects
was bags for the Village of Brussels
when the recycling program was first
launched years ago.
As the company’s popularity
began to grow, however, so did the
popularity of canvas bags and cheap-
er-made bags were being imported
from Asia. It was at that point that
the focus of the business shifted and
Barmy Tech, while still producing
what one customer called “the
Cadillac of canvas bags” they began
subcontracting and became an indus-
trial sewing house for all projects
and creations.
Cummings says she has created
cloth loading pads for Zehrs stores
and barn curtains, among hundreds
of other creations.
Soon, however, the world opened
up for Barmy Tech and the work
began pouring in faster than
Cummings could do it.
Over the years, she developed
partnerships and used her brain to
Continued from page 16
he stated he would prefer to see a
preferential balloting system to help
narrow down selections; the elimina-
tion of the Katimavik program,
which he said was a fantastic pro-
gram created with one flaw: it was
created and maintained under a
Liberal government and, therefore,
wasn’t something the current gov-
ernment could keep; and Canada’s
diminished role and stature on the
world stage which he said would
have to be repaired the same way the
government’s trust needs to be
repaired: through hard work and co-
operation.
In a brief press question and
answer period before he went to the
Seaforth and District Community
Centre, Trudeau spoke on several
different issues including how he
deals with being the eldest son of
Pierre Trudeau.
“I’ve been my father’s son and
very proud of it all my life but I also
know I have my own name to make,”
he said. “It was tough for me to get
into politics as my father’s son, but it
was tough for me to start first grade
as my father’s son. It’s a challenge
but it’s one that I am comfortable
with.
“The more time I spend chatting
with people and sharing my own
ideas, which are very much anchored
in the kind of values of my father but
also very much updated to what we
need now, the more people are going
to get to know me,” he said.
He also addressed why supporting
rural Canada is such a key factor
in a comprehensive plan for
Canada.
“I think that one of the things that
the Liberal party needs to do in gen-
eral is reconnect with Canadians
from coast to coast to coast, he said.
“We have dwindled every election
since 2000 in a rather drastic way
because we ceased to connect with
Canadians. We ceased to listen to
them, we ceased to engage with
them and we ceased to be a vehicle
for their hopes and dreams.
“Our capacity to reconnect with
them passes through rural Canada
and the values of the concerns of
hardworking people right across the
country,” he said. “That’s what I’m
here for tonight. Part of what I’ve
been travelling through rural Canada
for the past year to wonderful small
communities like this gathering
people together to talk about
issues.”
He also spoke on why, as an MP of
a very urban centre, which he admit-
ted to being smaller than most of the
farm fields in Huron-Bruce, he feels
that he can relate to Canadians
across the country.
“The ties that bind Canadians are
a shared set of values based on ope-
ness, respect, respect for justice and
being there for each other because
the spaces are too big and the win-
ters are too cold for any of us to do it
on our own,” he said. “The chal-
lenges we face as a country are
always best met when we pull
together. Unfortunately it’s been
very efficient in politics over the past
year to play the politics of division,
to find wedge issues to drive differ-
ences home between urban to rural,
between east to west, English to
French, new arrivals to multi-gener-
ational Canadians and the challenge
we’re facing is to get people to
believe once again that we are strong
not in spite of our differences but
because of those differences and
that’s the message the Liberal party
needs to bring forward.
He said that, while he isn’t
announcing his running for the
Liberal Party leadership in Seaforth,
he has heard from people who want
him to.
“I’m hearing, and I have been
hearing, from Liberals across the
country, but particularly since the
[May] election last year that there is
something happening and that this is
an exciting time for the Liberal party
in general, not specifically linked to
me,” he said. “In the last election,
people started calling, they started
saying we need a Liberal party and
leader, we need a party that is fiscal-
ly responsible and progressive and
willing to care for people when they
fall on hard times.
“A hand-out is not what they need.
A helping hand is sometimes what
they need and unfortunately they are
beginning to see, particularly in
areas like this, that we have a gov-
ernment that takes its rural support
for granted,” he said. “We have a
government that is being very cava-
lier in its attitude to essential issues
like supply management and not
being the kind of voice for rural
Canada that it needs to be and I think
that a strong Liberal party is going to
be a very, very important factor in
the coming election in 2015.”
When asked about Bill 115, the
current provincial legislation
restricting teacher’s rights to job
actions, he said that he wouldn’t
comment for two reasons.
“I am a Quebec MP, which has
two effects on me: First of all, it
makes me very wary of weighing
into other province’s internal busi-
ness,” he said. “Secondly it makes
me even more wary about weighing
into areas of provincial jurisdiction
so I’m not going to comment on
[Bill 115].”
Still going strong
Dorothy Cummings, owner of Barmy Tech in Walton, admits that her business has gone
through many incarnations, but after 20 years Barmy Tech is still operating and is currently
stronger than ever. Cummings is seen here with her wall of canvas bags, several clotheslines
displaying many of the company’s creations over the years. (Shawn Loughlin photo)
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Continued on page 22