With the flat economy still adversely affecting the graphic arts sector, key industry organizations have ramped-up their activities to promote and advance the causes of Canadian printers. I spoke to Bob Elliott, President of the Canadian Printing Industries Association (CPIA), to get an update on what his organization is doing.
What’s new with CPIA right now?
As part of our commitment to provide information on the industry at large, we have just completed a survey of the state of the printing industry. Working with Industry Canada and our partners in the U.S. – Printing Industries of America (PIA) – we surveyed over 4,000 printers and will be writing a report outlining where the industry has been, where it is today and where it might be headed over the next couple of years. We consider reports like this as part of our role in providing important industry information. We also publish our annual Industry Profile and write the annual Forecast issue for the magazine published by PIA. We have also just been asked by Environment Canada to co-chair an industry advisory committee to provide feedback to that department on its plans for a VOC agenda for our industry.
How has the association fared over the past few years of economic instability?
The tough times that our members and the industry have faced have also had an impact on CPIA. I wish I could say that membership numbers held their own, however, they have actually declined. Printing companies were faced with tough decisions and in some cases that meant having to drop a membership that they had held for many years. Similarly, the landscape made it tougher for us to recruit new members. Additionally, the economy had a significant effect on the success of the Graphics Canada show in which CPIA had been a sponsoring partner for many years. The bottom line, as our members are aware, is that we have struggled over the past few years. However, this hasn’t stopped us from successfully performing most of our traditional activities, and continuing to offer a array of benefits that provide exceptional value to our members.
CPIA has been strong in promoting networking and opportunities for pre-press and bindery as well as print providers. However, your focus on government representation seems to be at the top of your list. Why is that, and can you give me some examples of recent successes?
CPIA has long acted as the “watchdog” if you will, for our industry when it comes to federal government policies, regulations and legislation. If there was no organization like CPIA to work on Parliament Hill on behalf of the printing industry, we would risk being told what we have to do – instead of having the opportunity to provide feedback in advance so that our perspective is taken into account as key policies, regulations and legislation are being developed. We have had many successes over the past several years, but our most recent is the Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance (ACCA) that CPIA has been advocating for many years. This was passed in 2007 and provides printers with the ability to write off their capital equipment and software purchases over a much shorter time frame of 2 years, rather than what was permitted previously. The federal budget released on March 22 called for a further 2-year extension. However, we will see what happens if and when an election is called. Also, in 2010, we worked with other interested groups to ensure that Canadian companies would continue to be able to insert mail directly into the U.S. Postal System. There was strong opposition in some circles and it took about 5 years to finally convince the government that this was critical to our industry.
I understand CPIA will be launching a new membership campaign. What are your plans?
Our plans are to involve more printing companies in CPIA. There are 8,000 – 9,000 printing companies in Canada employing about 65,000 people. CPIA’s role on behalf of the industry in federal government affairs alone is certainly valuable to every one of those companies. When you consider the other services we offer, including membership in the Printing Industries of America, I feel that perhaps we haven’t managed to explain effectively what we do to a majority of those printers. So, we plan to do a much better job beginning with this campaign, in the hopes that increasing our numbers will carry more influence when we do speak to government on behalf of our members.
For more information, please visit CPIA’s website at www.cpia-aci.ca.