Band-owned plastics company serving local market

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When most of us take a sip of bottled water, we might give a little bit of thought to where the water we're drinking came from, but not many of us think about where the bottle came from.

If your water was bottled in Saskatchewan, there's a chance the bottle you're drinking out of was manufactured by CTK Plastics Ltd., a plastics manufacturing company based in Moose Jaw and owned by Carry the Kettle First Nation.

Carry the Kettle has been in the plastics business since 1989, manufacturing high-density polyethylene bottles and high-density polyethylene sheets. The bottles are used as containers for a variety of products, from the aforementioned water to janitorial supplies to motor oil. The sheets, also know as puck board, are used to line hockey and curling rinks, while an agricultural grade sheet introduced by a company a couple of years back is being used in a multitude of ways by farmers.

"As many farmers as there are, there's that many uses," said CTK Plastics general manager Dennis Wastle. "They see something where they think it might work and they try it."

The company sells its sheets across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and into the northern United States, but the majority of its customers for the bottles it produces are right here in Saskatchewan.

CTK Plastics' biggest client is the Federated Co-op in Regina, which uses bottles manufactured by the company for all of its motor oil products. The company also supplies bottles for Maxim Chemicals and Kemsol Products in Regina, which use CTK Plastics bottles for their janitorial products, and for three Saskatchewan-based bottled water companies-Saskatoon Bottled Water in Saskatoon, Arctic Glacier in Regina and Crystal Fresh in Swift Current.

Being the only plastics manufacturing company in Saskatchewan puts CTK Plastics at the advantage when it comes to providing product to Saskatchewan companies, Wastle said. Most of the bottles for bottled water had previously been coming from a manufacturer in Winnipeg, with local companies having to pay the freight charges for shipping the bottles to their plants.

"So we're able to compete and have a market advantage by being in Saskatchewan with the Saskatchewan customers," Wastle said.

"We are one of the very few independently-owned plastics companies in Canada. Most are multinational companies. So we compete with the big boys."

While Carry the Kettle First Nation got into the plastics business as a financial investment, it also bought the company as a way to provide employment opportunities for its members. As such, employing First Nation people has always been a priority for CTK Plastics, with emphasis placed on hiring people from Carry the Kettle as well as from other First Nation communities. Wastle estimates that currently about 55 per cent of the company's employees are Aboriginal.

New employees come in at entry-level positions and receive on-the-job training. They also receive other training as necessary, whether it be academic upgrading, first aid, forklift training or electrical or hydraulics courses.

"It's production line work, so it's low skill entry level and once they're here then they have the chance to improve their position within the company. There's several promotional steps that they can do, to shift leaders or maintenance department or shipping or receiving, and even into management."

Through employment at CTK Plastics, First Nation employees can also gain the skills and experience to find employment outside of the company.

With 15 years experience employing First Nations people, CTK Plastics has also become a valuable resource for other area manufacturing companies that are now beginning to recognize the value of tapping into the country's growing Aboriginal workforce. Through its involvement with the Regional Economic Development Association, the company has been highlighting the benefits of hiring First Nations employees, and has been fielding a number of quetions from companies interested in recruiting on reserve, Wastle said. And, as Aboriginal people continue to make up more and more of the available workforce, that interest is only going to grow.