First Ontario produced masks ready for use, Premier Doug Ford says
Posted April 7, 2020 1:06 pm.
Last Updated April 7, 2020 2:04 pm.
Premier Doug Ford announced Monday that the first made-in- Ontario face masks are ready, one day after he warned that the province would run out of personal protective equipment in one week.
Ford was at the Woodbridge manufacturing facility in Vaughan, Ont., where the first 1,000 Level 3 masks have been produced.
“Woodbridge, together with the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, has been working at an unprecedented pace to retool their factories and get the required approvals to manufacture masks for our front-line workers,” the premier said in a statement.
“I was thrilled to see first-hand the fruition of their hard work and look forward to them ramping up production in the coming days to meet the demands of Ontario and soon other parts of the country.”
The company hopes to eventually produce one million masks per week and have the product certified as N95 masks to be used in all health-care settings. Woodbridge will be making the masks at its facilities in Vaughan and Kitchener.
Ford has blamed supply shortages on a combination of delays in global shipments, domestic manufacturing lag time and U.S. restrictions.
Late Monday, manufacturer 3M reached a deal with the White House to continue sending masks to Canada, shortly after U.S. officials held up a shipment of 500,000 masks.
