03/15/2025
🇨🇦 Choosing Canadian Matters 🇨🇦 A Letter To Our Industry Partners
Owning a business can be unpredictable, but never has this been more true than in the past 5 years. Plastic Plus has been serving the optical community for 50 years. I have been at the helm of our optical lab for the last 45 years. During this time I have seen our country go through many challenges ... but this is the first time I have felt compelled to write a letter like this.
You have often heard me say that Plastic Plus is 100 percent independently family owned. It was started by my late father Sydney Faibish, who was an optometrist with a vision for helping eyecare providers offer the most affordable and innovative vision care solutions. This tradition continued through my own career as an optician and president, and now as my son Jason takes the helm of the company.
Our country is now under the threat of tariffs and disruption to our economy and nation. This is causing individuals and businesses to unite against this potential economic crisis.
Tariffs are the biggest threat we have possibly experienced since the Second World War. The threat of tariffs, will severely impact our economy and disrupt our nations' supply chain. This will affect every individual and business in our country.
To combat these threats, we need to reevaluate our purchasing power and buy as many products from Canadian suppliers in order to support and protect our economy. Simply put, the more we purchase from Canadian vendors, the more money goes back into the economy and into the pockets of your patients, which will allow them to purchase more and better eyewear.
If your purchases go to a lab which outsources their work to another country, less goods and services are purchased locally, thereby diverting revenue and profits from Canada. It is as simple as that!
In Canada you have a choice of where to purchase your lenses. There are a handful of hardworking independent labs. However, more than 80% of the market is controlled by a few multinational corporations. These multinational labs all have production facilities outside of Canada, which they utilize. This allows them to use inexpensive labour as opposed to hiring Canadians, and to divert their taxes to other countries with lower tax rates. Plastic Plus supports over 80 employees and all our taxes are paid in Canada.
Yes we have higher taxes in Canada, but this allows for universal healthcare and the social safety net which are the cornerstone of our incredible country.
One more important point - if you support an independent lab, your money does not go to your competition. We have zero retail affiliation. We are not working against the success of your business - we are supporting it!
We ask you to continue your support which has helped us invest back into our state-of-the-art facility, allowing us to continue to drive innovation and offer you the best lens technology for your patients at competitive pricing.
This is the time to come together as an industry and a nation. We must support each other and keep our dollars in Canada. This is the country where Terry Fox ran and Gord Downie sang about. Now it’s your turn to be a hero.
Elbows Up!
Paul Faibish
CEO Plastic Plus
www.plasticplus.ca
