The packaging line at South Shore’s factory in Sainte-Croix, Que., has become a final symbol of a company trying to hold on. South Shore says it will shut down operations after trade pressure left the Quebec furniture maker unable to keep going, with the impact felt most sharply by its 126 employees and the town around them.
Why is South Shore shutting down now?
South Shore Furniture said it could not continue in the face of dumping by rivals from China and Vietnam, which lowered prices, while U. S. import tariffs hurt its sales into the American market and redirected Asian exports toward less restrictive markets like Canada. demand has “simply vanished on both sides of the border. ”
Its sales fell 77 per cent between 2022 and 2025,. South Shore, based in Sainte-Croix, Quebec, makes ready-to-assemble furniture including dressers, beds, nightstands, and bookshelves. Founded and owned by the Laflamme family, it has been in business for 86 years.
it will gradually shut down its plants in Sainte-Croix and Coaticook, Quebec, over the next several weeks. Employees were told Monday morning. For a business built around family ownership and local production, the decision marks the end of a long effort to keep the doors open in a market the company says no longer works for it.
How does the closure reach beyond one factory?
The impact is larger than a single company balance sheet. In Sainte-Croix, a town of 2, 700 people, South Shore is one of two major employers. That makes the shutdown a local shock, not just a corporate one. South Shore’s closure adds to pressure already building across Quebec’s wood-product sector, where other furniture makers have already scaled back Canadian production.
Jean Laflamme, chairman of South Shore Furniture, said most of the raw materials going into the company’s furniture come from the Quebec wood industry. “If we don’t protect that value chain, from the” he said, before the statement in the context ends. Even without that unfinished sentence, the point is clear: the company sees its decline as part of a wider strain on the chain that connects timber, manufacturing, and jobs.
The company’s statement also framed the shutdown as evidence that trade rules are failing Canadian producers. Charles Laflamme, the general manager, said: “We tried everything to maintain our operations and their jobs but it’s become impossible to pursue our business in a market where the World Trade Organisation rules are not respected. ”
What is being done to protect wood-product jobs?
The federal government has launched a trade inquiry into several manufactured wood products, aiming to protect domestic producers from rising foreign competition. The Canadian International Trade Tribunal is conducting a safeguard inquiry into global imports of cabinets and vanities, solid and engineered wood flooring, and storage furniture.
The Canadian Wood Products Alliance is pushing for Ottawa to immediately implement provisional tariffs on foreign-made goods entering Canada. The industry group says immediate action is needed to prevent stockpiling in Canada and to avoid more layoffs while the inquiry runs. It warned that an investigation alone will not provide the relief and stability the sector needs.
South Shore’s collapse gives that warning a human face. For workers in Sainte-Croix and Coaticook, the issue is no longer abstract trade policy. It is a decision that reaches kitchens, paycheques, and family routines all at once. The company that once turned Quebec wood into bedroom furniture is now winding down its plants because, in its view, the market has stopped giving it room to survive.
As the last shifts move through the factory in Sainte-Croix, South Shore’s name will still sit on the products it made. But for the people who packed them, moved them, and built them over the years, the bigger question is what comes after the line goes quiet.
