Unions in Canada are upset that the olympians part of Team Canada are wearing clothing manufactured in China.
The apparel was unveiled last Wednesday. HBC, which was granted the production and distribution contract, has announced that 80% of all manufacturing activities have been exported to China.
"It's totally unacceptable," said President of Teamsters Canada Robert Bouvier in a press statement. "Canada employs several tens of thousands of textile workers, and HBC didn't even have the decency to entrust the production of our athletes' apparel to Canadian workers. Our athletes should be wearing apparel produced by and for Canadians. It's simply logical. Canada has lost tens of thousands of jobs in this sector over the past few years. I hope that consumers will remember HBC's decision when the time comes for them to purchase Team Canada apparel."
In 2006, a similar controversy had broken out during the preparation of the Torino Games in Italy.
Teamsters Canada is a labor organization with over 125,000 members. It is affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which has 1,400,000 members across North America.