Northern Cables expands

A Brockville manufacturer is expanding — thanks to a financial boost from the province. An Ontario Cabinet Minister paid a visit to the “Northern Cables” plant today. It’s already one of Brockville’s largest employers. And the expansion will create even more jobs. Newswatch’s Jonna Semple reports.

“I’m pleased to announce that Ontario is providing a grant of 820-thousand dollars to Northern Cables through the Eastern Ontario Development Fund.”

It’s a good news day for Brockville’s manufacturing sector. Northern Cables, a twenty year old company that manufactures copper, aluminum and low voltage cables for industrial and commercial use plans to expand its business. The money from the province is 10 percent of an 8.2 million dollar expansion of the Brockville operation. The funding is from the Eastern Ontario Development Fund.

Joe Brunner – Vice President
“The capitol project is two-fold. One part is to add more capacity for the company because we’re capacity limited now, in other words we have more business we can get if we had more capacity and the second part is vertical integration, there’s raw materials that we purchase now-out source that we would make ourselves.”

Northern Cables is adding 30 thousand square feet to one of its Brockville plants as well as adding equipment to manufacture aluminium products at their Prescott location.

Steven Del Duca -MPP
“So in this particular case, we’re looking at somewhere in the neighbourhood of 18 to 20 additional jobs that will be created because of this 820-thousand dollars investment from the provincial government.”

The company currently employs about 160 people. Northern Cables ships its electrical cable products across North America. Brockville’s mayor says new growth at Northern Cables will continue to have a positive impact on the community.

Dave Henderson – Brockville Mayor
“The companies that it supplies, that supply it locally build up skills and technologies and supply chains that actually help us with other companies. So it builds up sort of a centre of excellence in manufacturing in this core area.”

Jonna Semple
“Hiring at Northern Cables has already begun and construction on the new addition is set to start in the next few weeks with the aim for it to be open December this year. Jonna Semple, CKWS Newswatch- Brockville.”

CKWS Television