| Knee Deep in Jobs Bloody
Jobs
Is the profit in the pork barrel worth the price? If the allure of amoral job creation triumphs, Manitoba will soon be a province where every four seconds a pig is butchered and every year the flesh of some 10 million Babes is rent and sent to market. Put out of their misery might be a better choice of words, for this apocalyptic achievement is sure to be attainable only through state-of-the-art factory farming, wherein quantity of pork produced per unit time over quality of life per hapless pig is the guiding value. Together with Maple Leaf's sister slaughterhouse in Brandon, the impending $125 million dollar expansion of the Schneider plant in St. Boniface will create an astronomical increase in the local demand for pigs for slaughter. And this is expected to accelerate the slide to extinction for Old MacDonald's less efficient family pig farm. Goodbye Old MacDonald, hello big box farmhouse—"vertically integrated" with big box slaughterhouse under the same big tower corporate roof, namely Schneider's new American owner, Smithfield Foods, the mother of all pork producers on the continent, if not the planet. Will this mass ascension of innocent pig souls into the Big Prairie Sky be worth all those jobs bloody jobs? Is any job a good job? Even for otherwise conscientious meat gobblers, the question of humane animal treatment and environmental protection from overwhelming concentrations of pig waste must arise. Presumably (despite their behaviour at the trough so far), this is also a priority for our progressive new premier and compassionate mayor. If so, Smithfield Foods must not be allowed to import their ignominious environmental record into our city and province. Smithfield "received the largest waterway pollution fine ever levied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, $12.6 million dollars for dumping slaughterhouse waste into Virginia's Pagan River," according to Vicki Burns, Executive Director of the Winnipeg Humane Society (The Winnipeg Humane Society News, Winter 2000). And neither should Schneider/Smithfield or Maple Leaf in Brandon be allowed to get away with slaughterhouse assembly line speeds so rapid that workers break records for occupational injuries while more and more pigs are strung up, still conscious, to meet their packager. Sadly, the problem will get worse, not better, if the federal government proceeds with its plan to phase out plant inspectors and trust the industry to watch over its workers and its inventory of bacon-on-the-hoof. Just maybe we can change things, if we want to. As Burns points out, "animal welfare concerns are inextricably linked with environmental concerns. The confinement of so many animals in so little space results in waste disposal issues that are a tremendous challenge to the environment. If we can persuade our government and farm industry to adopt animal welfare friendly systems, we can likely decrease our environmental issues as well." If you don't want Winnipeg's new slogan to be "love me, love my abattoir," send your concerns to your MLA, to the relevant provincial and federal ministers, and/or to Mayor Murray. Manitoba's Minister of Agriculture and Food is Rosann Wowchuk, 165 Legislative Building, 450 Broadway Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R3C 0V8, 945-3722, fax: 945-3470, minagr@leg.gov.mb.ca. Manitoba's Minister of Conservation (who has played hide-and-seek with his concerned advisers, the Manitoba Environmental Council) is Oscar Lathlin, 333 Legislative Building (as above), 945-3730 or 945-3522, fax: 945-3586, mincon@leg.gov.mb.ca. Canada's Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food is Lyle Vanclief, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Sir John Carling Building, 930 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0C5, (613) 992-5321, fax: (613) 996-8652, Vanclief.L@parl.gc.ca. Mayor Glen Murray (who, like Premier Gary Doer, seems dazzled by the dollar signs) can be reached at Mayor's Office, Council Building, City Hall, 510 Main Street, Winnipeg, MB, R3B 1B9, 986-2196, fax: 949-0566, GMURRAY@city.winnipeg.mb.ca. Maybe, just maybe, there can be a win-win solution. Though compassion should be its own reward, it could prove economically profitable here. The Winnipeg Humane Society and the B.C. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are working to introduce "humane labelling" to Canada. Pioneered by the Royal SPCA in the UK, it's a certified way for food producers to assure consumers that their products are at least "less cruel," if not cruelty free. The demand for such products is growing, as the conscience of the world (it would seem) is evolving. Humane pork, anyone? From friendly Manitoba? If pig slaughterhouse central we must be, let us at least be a kinder, gentler abattoir until any abattoir puts us all off our food.
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