Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers (2026) Magazine - Magazine - Page 16
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LONGBOARD
CANADA’S TOP SMALL & MEDIUM EMPLOYERS (2026)
p Despite hefty U.S. tariffs on its aluminum siding, Longboard Architectural Products increased its workforce last year and is actively expanding into new export markets.
In for the Long Run
How one of this year’s SME winners dealt with the 50 per cent U.S. tariff on its aluminum cladding
W
hen the United States
last year imposed new
tariffs of 50 per cent
on imports of
Canadian aluminum
and steel, many large companies spoke out
about the challenges these measures
caused. But it wasn’t only big enterprises
that were affected.
Some of Canada’s Top Small and Medium
Employers (2026) felt the impact as well,
and possibly none more so than
Longboard Architectural Products Inc.
of Abbotsford, B.C.
Longboard makes a distinctive type of
aluminum cladding for residential and
commercial buildings, often with a
wood-grain style that makes it attractive as
well as durable. Needless to say, nearly all
of the product is aluminum. Moreover,
some 80 per cent of the company’s market
is in the United States. So how did
Longboard — and its workforce — fare in
the wake of the new tariffs?
“We are in this for the long run,” says
Longboard chief financial officer PJ
McKnight. “We made probably a fairly
unusual decision to just hold our pricing
in the U.S. It had a pretty significant
impact on our operations this year. But our
approach to the market is that we want to
be the most trusted partner out in the built
environment. We got a lot of good
response from the U.S. market and
basically still saw a growth year.”
McKnight notes that Longboard, a
private company, has routine price
increases every year, and it offers a high
value-added product, routed through its
U.S. subsidiary. It’s also vertically integrated, extruding its own aluminum from the
raw product, giving it further price
flexibility. “We’re still paying a pretty hefty
tariff bill, but you know, there’s ways you
can focus in on what you really owe,
instead of that top line,” he says.
As for its employees — 215 and still
rising — McKnight says openness has
been key. “One of our core tenets is
transparency,” he says. “Our culture has
really been strong through this. Early on,
there were a lot of really negative things
out there about layoffs and stuff like that.
But right from the start, we’ve been really
clear with people that that’s not where
we’re going. And I think we’ve shown this
year, growing our head count, that we said
what we were going to do, and we’ve done
it.”
As with many other Canadian companies, Longboard is now actively seeking to
diversify its markets beyond the United
States. And as the year progresses,
McKnight is hopeful that 2026 will be the
year the trade issues are resolved. “We’re
in a place where we’re still comfortable
growing,” he says. “We don’t love being in
this tariff environment, but we can
continue on.”
— Berton Woodward
