On the morning of Tuesday September 13^th, approximately 250 people gathered at Teknion furniture headquarters for some breakfast and to hear Mayor John Tory speak. It was the Mayor’s Economic Update Breakfast and the purpose of the event was to remind everyone that manufacturing is an essential part of Toronto’s economy.The mayor’s message was clear: we need manufacturing in order to be a successful economy and there was no better neighborhood to deliver this message than in DUKE Heights. This is a neighborhood that provides many of the manufacturing jobs in the GTA, with manufacturing being the second largest source of employment for the 30,000 employees who work in the area.Mayor Tory emphasized that Toronto has a very competitive market for manufacturing. Toronto is home to some extremely innovative and intelligent individuals who create quality goods whose production is supported by good laws. The Mayor stated that because of these things, despite the economic downturn of 2008, manufacturing has grown in Toronto. In the last few years the GTA has added 1300 new jobs in manufacturing.Despite this growth, our local manufacturing sector is suffering. Canadian companies do not seem to have very strong exports and despite the Mayor’s claims that there are laws setup to support the manufacturing sector, there are many other road blocks from the city and local infrastructure that hinder development. The Mayor gave an example of a local company that wished to expand their food processing plant. For this addition they needed to receive new permits and hook up hydro to the new part of the building. It took so long to go through these official processes that the new addition of the plant was built and ready long before hydro was hooked up. Mayor Tory stated that he is aware of the roadblocks that manufacturers face when dealing with the City and city infrastructure and says he takes responsibility for these problems. “Time is money” says Tory “and we are working on that”. What form that work and responsibility will take remains unspecified at this juncture as this update seemed to serve mostly as a morale boost to the manufacturing sector.It is understandable since more than ever manufacturing is seen as a less viable career option. Part of the importance of holding his update at a factory like Teknion is to showcase what modern manufacturing can be. The products at Teknion are sleek and professionally engineered and the work is both craftsmanship and technology based. Teknion is a good example that to be successful in modern manufacturing requires intense training, education, trade skills and more.One thing to take from this economic update event is to try a little harder to support our local industry by buying local and supporting Canadian manufacturers.