Change for Good: The Tailor Project Yesterday and Today

The important role that Canadian businesses play addressing social problems has its roots in the Tailor Project, an initiative that helped Holocaust survivors rebuild their lives in this country after World War II.

After the war leaders from Canada’s garment industry recognized the opportunity to help Holocaust survivors who were languishing in displaced persons camps across Europe. Industry leaders, with the support of the Canadian Jewish Congress and organized labour unions, collaborated to bring twenty-five hundred Holocaust survivors to Canada and provide them with employment for one year to help them succeed in this country. Many of these people were tailors before the war while many others, desperate to escape from deplorable conditions in the DP camps, had never sewed but convinced the selection team that they had.

The Tailor Project was led by Max Enkin, the CEO of Hamilton-based Coppley, Noyes & Randall, more widely known as Cambridge Clothes. In addition to the Tailor Project, progressive initiatives that Enkin spearheaded included creating a welfare and pension fund for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and creating the Industrial Standards Act for the Men’s Clothing Industry in Ontario.

Max’s son Larry helped grow Coppley from sixty to more than six hundred employees and built on his father’s pioneering work in ensuring that the business was successful beyond making a profit. In addition to continuing to put a priority on hiring newcomers, Larry was responsible for other progressive business initiatives including implementing an on-site “vestibule” training program for employees new to Canada that helped them learn their trade in safe, supportive conditions at the factory in Hamilton, providing medical and social service support for employees, and contributing generously to the community.

Three years ago, Larry asked if I could help him find the people who came to Canada with the Tailor Project and understand how this initiative came to be and how it impacted lives of the survivors who were brought to this country. We were able to uncover the experiences of tailors who came to the Canada with the Tailor Project and their stories are shared for the first time in The Tailor Project: How 2500 Holocaust Survivors Found A New Life In Canada, a new book written by Andrea Knight, Paula Draper and Nicole Bryck and published by Second Story Press.

The actions Canadian businesses took to establish the Tailor Project helped the tailors and their families to rebuild their lives in Canada. More than seventy years ago business leaders recognized the core elements of what we now call corporate social responsibility: providing secure employment to people in need, embracing diversity and supporting the health and welfare of employees. A priority that the COVID-19 crisis has made even more important.

The Tailor Project is also emblematic of how our values as Canadians should be reflected in the way businesses in this country help to solve social problems. Acceptance, tolerance, empathy and collaboration are core to how we define ourselves as Canadians and should be central to how our businesses act to address social problems – as was done during the Tailor Project.

In 2001, Larry offered to mentor me when I started Impakt, a firm with the mission of helping businesses benefit from solving social problems. At that time, despite the actions of companies such as The Body Shop and Ben & Jerry’s, the social purpose of business was an afterthought. For almost 20 years, I’ve had the benefit of learning how business can contribute to society from someone who did this long before this was recognized as the priority it is today. The ways in which Impakt has contributed to social change would not have happened without Larry’s guidance.

“Most of us are the sons and daughters of immigrants to this country. Your fathers and mothers did not land in homes with tiled bathroom, large recreation rooms and innumerable bedrooms. They most likely were housed by friends who helped them establish themselves,” said Max Enkin. “Hospitality and looking after the homeless is or was an age-old tradition of our people. Let us copy and follow their example.”

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