Canada's first medical-grade nitrile glove factory is being built in London, creating 135 new jobs in the city.
Medicom, a Montreal-based manufacturer of high-quality, single-use, and preventive infection control products, announced on Friday it will be opening the $165 million plant in London's Innovation Park in the southeast end. The facility will ensure the country has a stable and reliable domestic source of medical-grade gloves going forward.
The federal and provincial governments are contributing a combined $72 million toward the factory - $42 million from the feds and $30 million from Ontario.
"When the pandemic hit, we found out very abruptly that we don't make personal protective equipment (PPE) in Ontario. It was shocking to find that out and not having that domestic supply source was very sobering," said Vic Fedeli, the province's minister of economic development, job creation, and trade.
Fedeli went on to explain that this realization in 2020 led to a push to bring PPE manufacturing back to Canada and Ontario.
"In a very short period of time we went from virtually zero PPE being manufactured here to 74 per cent of all PPE that the province of Ontario purchased today being made domestically, mostly in Ontario.... Once this plant is up and running that number will change to 92 per cent," he said.
Ground has already been broken on the new 140,000 square-foot plant with expectations that it will be up and running by 2026.
"Once open it will be the only manufacturing facility of its kind in Canada and one billion gloves will be made here each and every year," said London North Centre MP Peter Fragiskatos, who was on hand with Fedeli for Friday's announcement. "There will also be spillover into the industrial sector too. Most of the gloves will primarily find a use in the medical field, but there is an industrial function that comes as a result of this as well."
Medical grade nitrile gloves are manufactured to Health Canada standards and are the standard gloves used in the healthcare, dental, industrial, research, and retail sectors.
The provincial government has committed to procuring 500 million gloves from the facility for Ontario's healthcare sector annually.
"No one wants to relive the COVID-19 disaster and today we are collectively taking a crucial step to ensuring it never happens again," said Medicom Founder and Executive Chairman Ronald Reuben. "The gloves that we will manufacture will be the greenest, most ethical, and most innovative gloves that our caregivers have ever slipped on their hands."
Jobs being offered at the plant will range from line operators to maintenance personnel to engineers, accountants, and human resource professionals.