Our Company

Our history

• 1955 – Founded as Lee Chemicals
  Chemical engineer George Lee founded Lee Chemicals Limited in 1955 to provide for effective distribution of Dicalite filter powders and some allied media and equipment to the liquid filtration market in eastern Canada.
• 1974 – A new owner
  The current owner, Paul Lawrence, joined Lee Chemicals as a salesman in 1968 and became the owner in 1974 upon the retirement of George Lee.
• 1983 – General Filtration and Engineering acquired
  In 1983 Lee Chemicals purchased a long-time competitor, General Filtration and Engineering and since then has been known as General Filtration. The purchase of General Filtration greatly enhanced the range of the company’s offerings for liquid filtration.
• 1993 – product lines expanded
  1993 saw the purchase of Cantech Environmental and further expansion into the rolled non-woven media and machine tool coolant markets.
• 1996 – Acquired new warehouse
  In 1996 the company moved from the founding location in downtown Toronto to a 50,000 sq. ft. building in Concord Ontario, just north of Toronto. The new building has allowed for better service to our existing customers, as well as for expansion without the need to move again.
• Present – Expertise in liquid filtration
  General Filtration continues to serve the liquid filtration needs of the brewing, craft brewing, food and beverage, water treatment, chemical, wire drawing, mining, and electroplating markets among many others.