(MORRIS LAMONT, LFP) STRATHROY -- For a guy carrying 6,000 tons of the finest Wiarton limestone, J.P. Tremblay is in a buoyant mood.
"The sky's the limit. The possibilities are endless," he exults, waving his hands at the stacks of huge stone slabs waiting for their turns at the diamond-tooth saws and polishing machines at the Canada Rocks stone-cutting plant in Strathroy. Company president and co-owner Tremblay doesn't wait for an answer.
"That says it all," he announces. He's talking about the demand for finished stone products in the indoor and outdoor markets of Southern Ontario. "We're ideally placed as the only fabricating (stone-cutting and finishing operation) in all of Southwestern Ontario," Tremblay claims.
"Usually, all these operations are farther north, where the stone is," he says. That, in a nutshell, is the essence of the business. The North is full of rock -- at 10 cents a pound, imagine what the Canadian Shield is worth -- and the south is full of people who are off their rockers for rocks.
"Toronto is screaming for our product. They can't get enough," Tremblay says. What he can't ship fast enough to Toronto developers and landscapers is flagstones, tiles, countertops, stair steps, wall blocks, planters, water features, stone garden benches and tables -- in fact, stone anything.
It isn't all going to Toronto. A lot of Canada Rocks product is appearing in upscale new subdivisions and older neighbourhoods in the London area. "I've been a contractor all my adult life.
My wife and I moved to Strathroy in 1994 and started a landscaping business," he says. Ten years ago, Tremblay the contractor installed a paving-stone driveway for Steve Plunkett, the classic auto collector, showman and philanthropist who stages the lavish annual Fleetwood Country Cruizes at his equally lavish estate west of London, hosting the likes of Bobby Curtola and (in 2007) Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits and such 1950s ducktailed pop icons as Frankie Avalon and Fabian. "I had this idea for a stone fabricating shop where the work wouldn't be seasonal, it'd be year-round," Tremblay says.
"I've always had a love of the building-supply business," harking back to his days as a Copps salesperson and store manager, Plunkett says. "It seemed a perfect fit. Besides, it's a niche business and there's a tremendous need for another cut shop in this area.
The ones up north are so busy it takes ages to get an order filled." Besides, he liked Tremblay's drive and work ethic. "What impressed me most is his dedication to quality.
It's either the best or nothing at all," he says. Tremblay figures the startup cost at $1 million, "including inventory." He won't say what Canada Rocks' annual sales are, but does offer an insight.
"I figure any company in this business should be doing $1 million to $2 million after two years." In 4,500 square feet of rented space, he installed his main machine, a $200,000 saw with a 60-inch circular blade studded with 100 diamond segments. It can saw through a 24-inch thick slab, but needs new diamond teeth regularly.
"It costs $4,200 to replace the diamonds," Tremblay says. "Typically, we'll have anywhere from two to 10 guys on the floor plus my wife and myself," Tremblay says. Because this type of stone finishing is not recognized as a skilled trade in the London area, Tremblay says he has had to train his workers -- most of them local -- himself using skills he picked up in the trade at northern shops.
"We have a pretty good customer base. Beside all the demand from Toronto and local landscapers, Hollandia Pool and Spa calls us with custom orders for pool copings. Paul Rawlings (Rawlings Homes) also buys our product.
"The growth potential is huge. Our website is getting 3,000-5,000 hits a month. I don't get much sleep at night because I always figure there's something I should be doing.
" The personal tragedy of losing a son to cancer four years ago eventually led Tremblay into a related field in finished stonework -- making customized cremation urns and headstones. In this painful process, Tremblay discovered he has a flair for artistic design and an understanding of parental grief. With the new technique of laser etching, detailed designs of startling three-dimensional quality can be created on glass-like black marble from China.
Often hand-painted "with coatings that can last 50 years," these memorials are custom made. Motifs are often reflective of the character of the deceased -- a violin on an open musical score for a musician or music lover, for instance, or a family relationship, such as a mother and child. They are manufactured by Canada Rocks Monuments, a division of Canada Rocks Inc.
, in Stanstead, Que., "because that's where the granite rock is." Tremblay says his memorial stone division "is growing so fast it could be a company on its own.
" Despite its successes, Tremblay's Strathroy operation is not widely known. "People drive in and say, 'Hey, man, we didn't know you were here.' Once they visit this place, they're astonished.
" "It's the king of limestones. It isn't something you can buy at Home Depot," he says, indicating a row of limestone blocks, each weighing four to six tons. "Cut from the Niagara Escarpment, estimated at 375 million years old.
It used to be available only through Owen Sound Ledge Rock, but I heard of a huge inventory that had been cut but the buyer couldn't pay for it. "So we bought it. It took 175 B-Trains (semi-trailer loads) six months to deliver all this.
It's enough to keep us cutting for three to five years." Each block can be moved only with a powerful fork lift. They are so massive Tremblay uses some of them as a security barricade.
Eramosa polishes to a marble-pattern finish. Cut into thin veneer (three-quarters of an inch to one inch thick) it sells at $10 a square foot. No wonder Tremblay says every usable chunk of scrap is utilized and what can't be turned into a finished stone product is sold to a local firm to be ground up as aggregate.
While Eramosa holds pride of place at Canada Rocks, it's only one of many types of stone the company carries and they are not all delivered in massive blocks. "We also have Silver Water limestone from Manitoulin Island, through the same contact. It takes a beautiful marble-pattern polished finished.
It's for indoor use -- can't put outside or the sunlight fades it. "It's very popular in Michigan. The Detroit Symphony Hall is finished in it," Tremblay says.
But no word yet that the Detroit Symphony itself has switched to rock.
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