For more than a century, the town of St. Marys and our cement plant have grown up together. This closeness shapes everything from how the plant operates day to day to how its people choose to spend their time outside of it.
When a company has been part of a town since 1912, community involvement is not an initiative. It is simply who you are. Providing dependable economic opportunity to residents, contributing to local building and civic efforts, and investing steadily in ways that shape a place over generations: these have been constants here for more than 110 years.
The Community Liaison Committee (CLC), established in 2017 in its current form, works to ensure that residents are informed, questions are answered, and neighbours have a standing forum to raise concerns and hear directly from plant leadership. Meetings are held quarterly, recorded, and streamed via the Town of St Marys YouTube channel. All meeting minutes and presentations are published so anyone can review them at any time.
On the environmental side, our Continuous Emissions Monitoring System collects close to 70,000 data points every day to meet Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks requirements. We also use Enviro-Suite, an environmental intelligence platform, to track and analyze odour trajectories in real time, which allows us to assess whether reported concerns originated from the plant and respond with specificity rather than assumption. Every complaint received is logged, investigated, and reported back to the CLC. This is the value of Sustainable Legacy of Our VC Way: each operation contributing to the development of the people, environment, and community where it works.
The plant opened in 1912, and the relationship between St Marys Cement and the Town of St. Marys has been growing ever since. Generations of the same families have worked here. This reflects a workplace and a community that people actively choose to remain part of.
Over more than 110 years, the plant has completed more than 200 community projects, created more than 900 jobs, and earned more than 80 awards. Our team was instrumental in the opening of St. Marys Memorial Hospital in 1950. We donated land for the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, contributed to the Pyramid Centre and Cadzow Park, and supported the redevelopment of the old limestone quarry into one of Canada’s largest outdoor freshwater swimming pools, now part of the Lind Sportsplex. The cement produced here went into structures that defined a country: the CN Tower, Roy Thomson Hall, Maple Leaf Gardens, and the Darlington Nuclear Station.
None of that history sits in a display case. It is the standard every team member inherits when they walk through the gate, and the measure against which every new contribution is made.
The Community Liaison Committee meets quarterly to weigh local matters, share plant updates, and respond to concerns from residents and stakeholders. Members include plant leadership, local council representatives, Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks officials, and Town of St. Marys residents. Meetings are recorded and available on the Town of St. Marys YouTube channel, and all minutes are posted on the liaison committee page.
Any resident can reach the plant community contact directly to ask a question, raise a concern, or request to be added to the update list. Open Dialogue is not a value applied selectively here. After more than a century together, it is simply how this community and this plant communicate.
In a town where the plant and the community have grown up together, involvement is not a program; it is a habit. Volunteers from the plant coach local hockey and contribute to youth sport programs across the area. Our team supports the Stratford House of Blessing Food Bank, serving families in the surrounding Perth County region. Employees participate in the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority’s water conservation efforts, connecting the plant’s long relationship with the Thames River, the same waterway that made this site viable in 1912, to present-day stewardship work. Each year, team members join hundreds of regional volunteers for the United Way Day of Caring.
Across the Votorantim Cimentos North America (VCNA) network, our businesses have contributed approximately $1.6 million USD over five years to causes focused on health and wellness, veterans and emergency services, and education. The longevity of that investment, across decades and across generations of the same families, reflects the Customer Focus and Sustainable Legacy principles at the heart of Our VC Way.
Environmental reports, permits, Community Liaison Committee meeting minutes, and public records for the St Marys plant are available. These include emissions monitoring data, annual compliance reports, and presentations from quarterly CLC meetings, some of which include detailed odour tracking results, complaint logs, and Alternative Low Carbon Fuels usage updates.
A long relationship is built on trust, and trust depends on access. Everything this plant files, monitors, and reports is available here.
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