SAINTE-CROIX, Quebec — After 86 years of manufacturing history in Quebec, South Shore Furniture announced April 27 that it is ending operations. More than 126 workers will be affected by the closure, which the company said was a result of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.

According to a statement by the Laflamme family, owners of the company, the decision was the most difficult in the family's history, and was the result of an unprecedented crisis in the Canadian furniture industry. 

"In a few months, our sales have dropped by 77%. The massive dumping of imported products and American tariffs have caused a collapse in prices that has made local production untenable. We can no longer continue to operate while selling our products for less than what raw materials cost us. Despite all our efforts in recent months, it is no longer possible to continue. Today, an entire section of Quebec's manufacturing capacity is disappearing with us."

Dorel, Prepac and now South Shore: three Canadian wood furniture producers have closed down their Canadian operations in the last year. In June 2025, Dorel ceased all manufacturing in North America, including at its factory in Cornwall, Ontario. Also, in 2025, ready-to-assemble furniture manufacturer Prepac Manufacturing Ltd. terminated more than 170 jobs in Canada, and shifted operations to its North Carolina facility. Within a year, that U.S. facility was shuttered.

South Shore Furniture, at its peak, had hundreds of employees and multiple facilities. Last year, the company made its first round of job cuts, eliminating 115 jobs at its factory and head office in Sainte-Croix, and its facilities in Coaticook. Today, there were 126 remaining employees notified of the closure. 

Cheap products from China and Vietnam have flooded the Canadian and American markets, lowering prices. Trump's tariffs on some Asian countries led those companies to redirect even more products to the Canadian market, lowering prices even further. Those tariffs also impacted the company’s sales to the U.S., it said. 

In 2025, when Trump announced tariffs on Canadian goods, South Shore Furniture the company said 70 percent of its sales were conducted in the U.S. “For Canadian manufacturers like South Shore Furniture, demand has simply dried up on both sides of the border,” the news release said.

The situation is all the more heartbreaking because the company was one of Canada's Best Managed Companies and its products met the requirements of our customers thanks to state-of-the-art manufacturing processes. As proof, we have experienced sales peaks during the pandemic.

Jean Laflamme, chairman of the board of South Shore Furniture, told Le Peuple de Lotbinière that the current situation could hurt the entire Canadian supply chain. “If furniture sells for less than our raw material costs, very few Canadian companies can survive. The majority of South Shore Furniture’s raw materials come from the Quebec wood industry. If we don’t protect this value chain, from the forest to the finished product, we will lose it for good. I urge decision-makers to seriously consider this reality, which risks causing further closures, and to act quickly using the legal tools at their disposal to help an entire ecosystem that supports tens of thousands of jobs.”

The family said the end this "adventure," knowing that they have made every effort to maintain operations and jobs but could no longer continue in a market “where the rules of the World Trade Organization are not respected.”

"We will continue to raise our voice to support Canadian manufacturers and to ensure that the future leaves room for Canadian manufacturing production.

"We will continue to advocate for an entire value chain surrounding local wood, from the forest to the finished product. When a player disappears, the whole chain suffers."