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INAUGURATION OF TRANSCONTINENTAL PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
May 29, 2003
Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island
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Rémi Marcoux
Ladies and gentlemen.
Good afternoon, and welcome to the new Transcontinental Prince Edward Island.
It makes me very proud to have come to this beautiful part of the country to be among you today. This is an historic day for Transcontinental, its employees, and the communities that it serves it Prince Edward Island and neighbouring Atlantic provinces and I thank you all for coming here today.
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When we acquired the publishing and printing assets from CanWest last year, we did so with the intention of developing and improving those assets by continuously investing in the product and in the community. This new plant, a $3 million investment, goes to show how far we have already gone in that direction.
Transcontinental’s strategy is to become a leader in the niches and markets in which it operates. It’s a strategy that has allowed us to grow into a company that generated revenues of $2 billion in 2002 and have a large family of over 12,000 employees in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
Now, the Atlantic Provinces have become an important market to our development. They are a part of the country that we believe show great promise and potential and to which we are firmly committed. The new facilities being inaugurated today represent an important step in our goal to become a leader in the region.
More than that, however, it also represents an important step in our goal to reinforce our position as the leading independent newspaper printer not only in the Atlantic Provinces, but in Canada as a whole. Over the past few years, Transcontinental has dedicated a significant amount of time, effort and money to newspaper printing and publishing.
This new plant will play an important role in allowing us to provide coast-to-coast newspaper printing services to our customers. With that same goal in mind, Transcontinental will also soon be inaugurating an expanded and improved Transcontinental Halifax, as well as a brand new state-of-the-art plant in Montreal that will serve to print the daily La Presse .
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Rémi Marcoux, on the left
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I will soon hand the mike over to François Olivier, the man responsible for newspaper printing at Transcontinental, who will give you more details regarding our newspaper printing strategy and say a few words about all those who made this project possible.
Before I do, however, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the government of Prince Edward Island, the municipalities and the local organisations for their initial and ongoing support for our decision to locate ourselves here. It’s one I’m sure we won’t regret.
Doing business in PEI is easier than in any other part of the country. The process has been remarkably expeditious and straight-forward. We have not been bogged down by heavy bureaucracy, especially when I compare this to my home-province of Quebec. We truly appreciate your support.
So thank you all once again for coming and sharing with us in this momentous occasion. I will now let François address you. François.
François Olivier
Thank you Rémi. Good afternoon ladies and gentleman.
It’s now my turn to thank you all for being here today to help us celebrate this very important day for Transcontinental and its customers.
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Rémi Marcoux at the center and François Oliver at the far right
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As Rémi mentioned, the construction of this plant represents an important move that confirms our commitment to the Atlantic Provinces and improves our position in the newspaper printing sector in Canada. For Transcontinental, it’s also a move that is very much in line with an important business project we launched in 2002 called Horizon 2005 .
Horizon 2005 is a vast movement to mobilize everyone in the company to rethink our ways of doing things, our processes and our attitudes. The goal is to continue creating value for what we have identified as the three pillars of the company: the employees, the customers and the shareholders.
At transcontinental, we always say that the best way to create value for our shareholders is to create value for our customers. In order to do that, we need, trained, happy, and well-equipped employees. This new plant goes a long way in establishing those conditions and, as a result, ensures what I am sure will be a long and healthy future in this region.
For our employees, this new plant provides an improved and efficient work environment of which they can be proud. Of course, without the cooperation, patience and support of those employees, none of this would be possible.
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I’d like to thank a few of those whose contribution proved essential to the success of the project. I am thinking in particular of the project leaders here in PEI: David Eckbert, Roger Walker and Bruce MacDougall. I’m also thinking of Roger Brown and Tony Hebert from Halifax who provided enormous time and energy to seeing this project through with the support of Brenda York and Karen Trenholm. Thanks for everything. We wouldn’t be here today without you.
Of course, this project also goes a long way to creating value for our customers. The construction of this plant will allow the publishers of the newspapers we will print here – the National Post ,The Journal Pioneer , and The Guardian - to offer their readers and advertisers improved newspapers in terms of reproduction quality, use of colour, efficiency and flexibility. It will also provide our commercial customers with top-quality sheet-fed and web capabilities.
I’d like to thank some of those customers for their support and assistance in making this project come together: Pat Brennan and David Lyndsay of the National Post , Don Brenner of The Guardian , Sanday Rundell of The Journal Pioneer , and all the loyal customers of the former Williams and Crue. A big thank you to all of you. You can count on us to take our partnerships, your products, your readers and your advertisers to the next level of quality service.
The third pillar of the company, the investors, will of course also benefit from this new project.
As Rémi mentioned earlier, Transcontinental has a goal of strengthening its positioning as the leading independent newspaper printer in Canada. It’s a strategy that is founded on the belief that newspaper publishers will increasingly choose to outsource their printing activities in order to concentrate themselves on what they do best – produce quality content. |
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Newspaper printing is a niche in which we have tremendous expertise, that has great potential, and that we have identified as key to the company’s growth. The addition of this new plant to our already impressive network of 14 newspaper printing facilities across Canada will greatly help us in this regard.
Of course, a project of this scope cannot happen without good suppliers. We have, in fact, been using the same suppliers for all our projects in the Maritimes - here in PEI and on more than one occasion in Halifax. We respect them and trust them tremendously. Over the years, these guys have become much more than just suppliers. They have become partners essential to our development in this part of the country.
So a special thanks to Kerby Kutnam and all of his team at Lindsey Enterprises for the construction of the building, to Robert Grant and his team for the mechanical installation and to Richard White for the electrical work.
Last but certainly not least, I’d like to thank the local governments, organizations and communities without whom we would not be here today. Thank you in particular to all of those that made the construction of the Confederation Bridge a reality. Because it allows us to serve neighbouring provinces from the island much more efficiently, the bridge played an important role in our decision to establish ourselves in PEI.
In closing, I am proud to say that this project was conceived, planned and realized by 100% Maritime talent. That’s an important fact because this facility was built to serve this market and this community. |
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Transcontinental is dedicated to the success and growth of the business. We are going to ensure Transcontinental Prince Edward Island has what it needs to succeed and grow. And we know that our people here are just as dedicated to success as we are.
It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again. Transcontinental is firmly committed to and very positive about the vitality of the Maritime market. You can count on us to be part of the economic growth and success of Atlantic Canada.
Thank you!
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