Neha Chollangi
Special to the Times-Chronicle
During the early days of the pandemic when sanitization supplies were running low, distilleries across Canada stepped up to make hand sanitizer at their own facilities. Despite this, the Canadian government started spending millions on hand sanitizer from outside countries.
Many Canadian distilleries switched gears to make thousands of litres of sanitizer for free using the alcohol product at their facility, and provided the supplies to emergency workers, hospitals and fire departments.
CBC’s recent investigative report examined the government’s spending during the pandemic, according to which, $375 million was spent on hand sanitizer from foriegn manufacturers.
Grant Stevely, owner of Dubh Glas Distillery in Oliver, was shocked to hear this news. “It’s really disappointing to hear that because there’s a lot of small distilleries across the country that certainly stepped up to produce hand sanitizer,” he said.
Dubh Glas Distillery worked with many community members to make the hand sanitizer. They received donations from community businesses with things like glycerine and hydrogen peroxide which helped make the product.
The distillery initially distributed hand sanitizer when it was in high demand to local health care workers, first responders and the fire department. They also donated to organizations that wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford the supplies including the food bank and the Women In Need Society.
“We gave it initially for free because there was a demand right out of the gate. After that, we’ve sold it to some of those organizations,” said Stevely.
The distillery is still producing hand sanitizer but on a minimal scale compared to what they were doing earlier. They have also stockpiled the supply of what they produced before, in case there’s a need again.
Stevely said that “as people realized the world wasn’t coming to an end, we saw our gin sales start to pick up and the hand sanitizer sales start to go down because we can see the big guys starting to nudge their way into the marketplace who were able to keep up with the demand.”
Stevely said it’s frustrating that there are struggling businesses in Canada during this time, yet the government has chosen to send this money overseas.
One of the major takeaways in the report has been that millions of dollars have gone towards big corporations that are making profits while Canadian business, like the distilleries, have been shut out.
