Writer condemns the wisdom of allowing factory farms to proliferate in Manitoba

 Letter to the editor.

"The entire pork industry in Manitoba is facing a difficult time. That includes the hog farmers as well as the processors," GM Cam Dahl of MB Pork told the Brandon Sun, 17 June,2023.

 Without the benefit of taxpayers’ dollars (read: government support), the Manitoba hog industry (not farming) would have collapsed many years ago. 

Born and raised on a farm, I appreciate the proper raising and care of swine. Pigs produced in a factory-type situation however, live in conditions that are far removed from achieving humane animal stewardship status. 

Bad ideas and poor operating principles are very costly for the animals, our environment and society. 

It was some 24 years ago that the Filmon Progressive Conservative government unfurled the red carpet and opened Pandora’s box for the hog Industry to come into Manitoba. Now, since being elected in 2016, the Pallister and Stefanson regimes—through their Red Tape Reduction Act—have taken the cue to further expand the industry by discarding much of the legislation that had been put in place to protect our environment, Lake Winnipeg, and Manitoba water sources. 

Yes, it is very clear that Mr. Pallister and Premier Stefanson’s ministers have been busy reading the Filmon manual on how to manage the Manitoba government on the value-added concept of economics regarding the hog Industry. 

I often think there are those who will not be pleased with anything short of a regulatory footprint so light it allows hog barns to be built on floating platforms in the middle of Lake Winnipeg.  

This hog industry of Maple Leaf Foods and foreign-owned Hylife Foods is a meat exporting business. Manitobans consume about six per cent of their production. The rest is shipped away, leaving Manitobans to deal with all the waste and pollution that is leaves behind.

Unfortunately, polluted water, toxic air, health concerns and the plight of rural residents is not a consideration to Manitoba’s government. 

This political transgression of ruination is upon us, affecting the future of our children and generations that follow. 

John Fefchak

Virden , MB

Substance or showmanship? What's the key to success at the polls? According to the "At Issue" panel - the answer might surprise you! (Letter)

Dear Editor,

And here I thought there were things governments could do to make our planet safer from the ravages of manmade climate change - offer subsidies to those who give us cleaner energy alternatives, or regulations to those who pollute. 

Then, those of us who want to save our earthly home from climate catastrophe, can simply vote for the Party that seems most likely to do these things.

The “At Issue" panel on CBC TV reminded me just how wrong I was, when they recently discussed the topic of Alberta, now facing epic wildfires amidst an election campaign.

The guest panelist from Alberta thought “Danielle,” (Premier Danielle Smith) was “generally acting as a Premier” in the face of the crisis. (I wonder if she knows him as “Jason?”) The other panelists generally thought the way the Premier was handling things would probably be seen as "a plus,” too.

Never mind that, it wasn't that long ago that Smith considered the science of climate change, “unsettled,” or now describes the federal program to transition away from fossil fuels, “an existential threat.” 

Neither does it apparently matter that, when Premier herself, Rachel Notley moved to phase out coal and place a cap on oil sands emissions.

I believe this panel, which mostly offers intelligent insight into world affairs, missed the mark this time.

They also insulted Alberta voters by suggesting they'll be basing their votes - not on solid, science-based policies which will make or break a successful, long-term counter-offensive against these"Hellfires" - but rather on a death-bed display of “showmanship” in the final days of a campaign.

Larry Powell

SHOAL LK MB

No room for error on water

Letters - Winnipeg Free Press

I wish to add to the comment made by Karen Lalonde (“Project a risk to aquifers,” Letters, Feb. 28) that “there are other companies in Manitoba producing silica sand but not going through aquifers to attain it.” While this is true, this statement implies that drinking water is not affected by traditional silica sand mining methods.

In the case of the Wanipigow Sand Mine, Canadian Premium Sand will use massive amounts of groundwater to wash their sand before exporting it. That groundwater presently drains to Lake Winnipeg, the Manigotogan and the Wanipigow rivers via fish-bearing creeks and underground springs. Four communities obtain their drinking water from the Wanipigow and Manigotogan rivers, and many cottagers along Lake Winnipeg use wells. In fact, the whole ecosystem well past the mine’s boundaries will likely be affected.

A mine can’t take millions of gallons of water out of a watershed without affecting life.

Four years after Canadian Premium Sand received its licence, the public has yet to see the hydrogeological report that would confirm the effects of this project on the ecosystem, the wells and the water people drink. Why hasn’t the government demanded clear, transparent reporting to the citizens most affected?

Let us agree on one thing — the problem is a shoddy environmental-review process and enforcement of the 98 conditions attached to the Wanipigow Sand Licence issued four years ago. This government is failing to protect the water of all of its citizens.

We agree: there is no room for error when it comes to water. The invasive process being proposed for the Sio Silica mine threatens drinking water on a massive scale. Camp Morning Star stands with citizens opposing the Sio Silica Mine. We all deserve thorough research and answers regarding these projects before they license the processing plants. Show us the science! Water is life!

M.J. McCarron

Camp Morning Star

Gimli

Buying carbon indulgences (Letter)

Letter - Manitoba Co-Operator 

Letters to the Editor

Manitoba Cooperator

Dear Mr. Gilmour:

Re: The carbon credit reality Feb.25

Almost four years ago I saw a full colour, half page ad placed by the Manitoba Pork Council with the Winnipeg Free Press. It claimed that Big Pig, as I know the MPC, had the strictest environmental protection of any jurisdiction in North America. So I wrote the former CEO to ask who had the second strictest. Obligingly, he wrote back to say that he didn't know. Yes, he didn't know. Meaning that the published claim was specious. (I exposed that lie before a legislative committee with the CEO in the room and the ad never again appeared in the Free Press.) 

So, excuse me if David McInnes' gushing about Canada's record in food sustainability appears to be similarly suspect. I duly note that he is under contract to 22 various and sundry special interest groups seeking some sort of Good Agribusiness Seal of Approval for food sustainability.

You report Maple Leaf Foods, of listeriosis infamy, buying indulgences in response to climate change. Paying industrial agribusiness  to store carbon is window dressing. It is form over substance. Farmers should be managing the land in the pursuit of regenerative agriculture because that is their calling, not because a billionaire needs them for promotional purposes that will enhance his company's status before a gullible media. 

On November 8, 2019 the Free Press published a story entitled "Maple Leaf Foods says it's now carbon neutral". Michael McCain gushed about his company's concern for the environment. This is the company that got a special dispensation from Gary Filmon (former MB  Premier) to destroy our locally sustainable hog farming community in favour of the current oligopoly that sees 8 million pigs raised under inhumane conditions with an enormous carbon footprint which in no way can be mitigated by writing a cheque to a foreign corporation. 

The Globe and Mail of December 17, 2019 reported that BMO has consumed the Kool-Aid. Maple Leaf now qualifies for BMO's "sustainability-linked" loans because of its ESG (environmental, social, governance) principles. However, to its credit, the Globe also noted that BMO did not audit, nor will it ever audit, Maple Leaf's ESG performance. And if it otherwise observes ESG failure, Maple Leaf will endure no financial penalty on its "sustainability-linked" loans. (BMO did not reply to my letter of complaint.)

Farmers will benefit financially if they embrace regenerative agriculture. That's unavoidable. Humans will secure our future because  such agriculture can contribute enormously to the drawdown our annual carbon production. Healing our soils worldwide will help to heal our climate and reverse the insidious desertification about which we were warned in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment over 20 years ago. Michael McCain writing a tax-deductible cheque to Indigo Ag in Boston only guarantees a deposit to Indigo's bank account and favourable media for Maple Leaf. Consultant McInnes speculates that Canada may be "the most sustainable food producer anywhere". In the meantime, Manitoba is overrun with what Big Pig four years ago called, essentially, the most sustainable pig factories in North America...until they weren't. 

Restorative agriculture demands commitment. Will Manitoba farmers rise to the challenge? This spring, check out the landscape. You will see fields tilled as black as the Ace of Spades. You will see topsoil blowing into ditches. Shelter belts being removed. Poison being applied. Drainage being accelerated. Wetlands destroyed. Carbon being surrendered to the atmosphere. And Mr. McInnes boasts of our "sustainability credentials"? That Maple Leaf, one of his clients, is part of a proposal to develop a "Canadian Agri-Food Sustainability Index" is terrifying.

C.Hugh Arklie,

HogWatchManitoba

Ag-gag laws make matters worse for hogs

By: Vicki Burns and Brittany Semeniuk

Winnipeg Free Press - OPINION

Sows confined to steel "gestation crates," a common practise in the industry.

"Ag-gag" legislation is silently sweeping across the nation, and both Hog Watch Manitoba and the Winnipeg Humane Society have serious concerns. The term "ag-gag" refers to any piece of legislation which stifles the ability of concerned civilians to document and report animal cruelty and abuse inflicted upon farm animals.

On March 10, the Manitoba government publicly released Bill 62 and Bill 63, which seek to make it illegal for Manitobans to not only document farm animals during transportation, but to bear witness to all livestock (including horses) in transport trucks, production facilities and slaughterhouses.

Factory-style hog barns that are dominating the hog industry now are a far cry from the family farms that many of the public still envision. The pigs are never outside, but are constantly confined in large facilities with slatted floors, through which their urine and feces fall to pits below. The toxic fumes, ammonia and hydrogen sulphide emanating from the pits will suffocate the animals within a couple of hours if the ventilation systems fail.

The imminent danger of ag-gag legislation being passed in this province means these Manitoban pigs will have no one advocating for their welfare. There will be no way for Canadian consumers to know of the inhumane conditions these pigs endure. Instead, the general public will be at the mercy of the industry’s secretive treatment of farm animals.

In addition to the above legislation, the two groups have learned that Canadian Hog Producers plan to delay the deadline for getting rid of gestation stalls in hog barns. The industry deems gestation stalls as a completely humane and acceptable way to confine sows, even though the animals are so severely restricted that they can take only a step or two forward or backward.

According to the Code of Practice for Pigs, hog producers were previously mandated to replace their intensive confinement systems (gestation stalls) with open housing systems by 2024. This agreement was reached in 2014, which will have given producers 10 years to make this change. However, this deadline is now at risk of being extended to 2029, allowing sows to remain in the cruel, restrictive gestation crates for an additional five years.

Gestation stalls are one of the worst examples of the industrialization of animal agriculture. They are metal crates whose dimensions are two metres by 0.6 metres, in which the female pigs (sows) are housed from the age of six months until they are culled at around two years of age. The sows are only moved out of those stalls a few days before they give birth, at which point they are transferred to farrowing stalls that have the same size restrictions for the sow, but have some room around the edges for the piglets to move around.

Sows spend their entire lives having to eat, sleep and relieve themselves in the same mind-numbing tiny space, with no ability to turn around or even walk.

The use of these stalls is not only inhumane, but contributes to the concentration of thousands of animals in small spaces producing vast amounts of manure that is then applied to nearby land. Manitoba claims the dubious distinction of having the highest number of pigs per farm, 5,563 — more than double the next highest in Quebec, at 2,350.

Many other countries around the world have already stopped the use of gestation stalls, including the EU, the UK and Australia. It is long past time for Canada to follow suit and stop this inhumane practice, and for Canadians to vehemently oppose ag-gag legislation within Manitoba.

The Winnipeg Humane Society and Hog Watch Manitoba urge supporters to contact their MLAs and demand that they oppose the proposed ag-gag legislation becoming law in Manitoba.

Vicki Burns is a member of the Hog Watch Manitoba steering committee and Brittany Semeniuk is an animal welfare consultant with the Winnipeg Humane Society.

Of Pandemics and Climate Calamity. An Opinion Letter.

by Larry Powell

I guess you could call this a“what if” letter.

Wildfire smoke from hundreds of kilometres away, clouds
this Manitoba landscape. A PinP photo. 

What if we humans would listen as intently to our specialists in the earth and climate sciences as we now seem to be doing to those in infectious disease? Except for a fringe few (like the wing-nut "Frontier Centre," which likens Covid-19 to a hoax), many of us have accepted that this is serious and lives will be saved if we follow public health directives during this virus's heartless rampage. 

Compare this to the attention given to the decades of warnings of climate collapse and eco-system breakdown from experts in the atmospheric sciences. The differences could not be more stark. 

While our Medical Health Officers and other specialists in the field of infectious diseases are, rightly, being hailed as heroes, climatologists and others in similar fields, have been ignored, at best, or threatened with death, at worst. 

Meanwhile, sea levels have not stopped rising, global heating has not taken a pause and neither have violent, destructive and costly weather events like wildfires and flash floods, or mass species extinctions, just because of the deadly pandemic. 

While greenhouse gas levels did drop significantly due to Covid-imposed lockdowns of travel and industrial plants, much more will be needed to make a lasting difference. Besides, those levels are already on the way back up with such restrictions being lifted in many places.

While a lot of hard-nosed Albertans will never admit it, Fort Mac, hit by a disastrous flood recently (on top of the tragic wildfires that ravaged the Town some four years ago) is, yet again, another tragic example of the cost of climate denial.

In an article I read recently, writer John Gibbons, puts it in a different, perhaps more effective way. 

“Imagine, for a moment  that our government and others around the world had been given detailed information and warnings about the coronavirus years, even decades before it finally erupted. Imagine also that experts had shown the path to minimizing or even avoiding this global disaster, but our political and business leaders, uneasy about the costs of taking action and possible disruption to commerce, chose to ignore the expert warnings as alarmist and carried on regardless.” 

The scenario Gibbons describes is pretty much the way governments have treated long-standing warnings of climate calamity - with contempt, indifference, neglect  or downright hostility. 

So, what if we begin to bring the same, respectful approach to alleviating our climate crisis as, largely, we've already with Covid-19? 

The sky, I do believe, would be the limit!

-30-

Letter to the Editor RE: Meat-packing sector needs oversight

Published recently in the Winnipeg Free Press.

The recent closures of meat packing plants in Alberta, Quebec and several American states due to the Covid-19 pandemic are shedding light on the tremendous expense of this style of massive meat processing operation. The expense borne by the workers at the plants is the greatest of all, their health threatened so severely, even causing death to one Cargill worker in Alberta. However the expense doesn’t stop there as consumers are expected to see meat prices jump, farmers have seen the prices paid for their animals drop by more than 30% and tax payers will ultimately pay the price to help bail out this sector.

Several decades ago when the move to close smaller slaughterhouses in favour of building huge single entity plants was happening, the rationale was that there were going to be tremendous efficiencies in doing this. National Farmers Union studies showed that the promised efficiencies of consumers seeing cheaper meat and farmers making a decent living simply did not materialize. The spread between what famers are paid for their animals and what consumers pay for meat has grown. The working conditions at the plants with thousands of animals being slaughtered each day are stressful at the best of times and downright dangerous during these times. Farmers suddenly have nowhere to sell their animals and consumers are starting to see less meat on their shelves.

Now is the time to look at how we can build a meat processing system that will not cause these massive problems. A move to build smaller, safer slaughter plants in each province would help to disperse the threats to food security. We could assure meat supply from local farms to meet local demands. If one plant was forced to close it would not disrupt the food chain across the entire country. Providing safe secure food from local farms to local consumers is entirely possible without putting meat packing workers at risk. Surely we’ve learned that bigger is not always better.

Vicki Burns, 440 Waverley Street, Winnipeg 204-488-1237

Fred Tait, Box 18, Rossendale MB 204-252-2153

Blogger supports the embattled climate campaigner, Greta Thunberg. (Opinion)

Dear Editor,

So I guess the bully-boys of the world's petro-states sure have Greta Thunberg on the run now. Apparently their "eyebrows were raised" because the 16 year-old schoolgirl suggested global leaders be put "up against the wall" for their lack of action on our climate crisis. I guess they were terrified Greta was going to unleash her standing armies against the likes of Saudi Arabia's murderous Crown Prince and Brazil's homophobic, rainforest-destroying (and Trump wanna be) President. Apparently Saudi Arabia, busily killing children in Yemen as we speak (quite possibly with the help of Canadian-made weapons), and Brazil, whose leader fires scientists for telling him the truth - that his policies are committing Brazilian rainforests to death by wildfire - were major hurdles in the way of any meaningful progress at the recently-failed environmental summit. (Canada's own role, I might add, was weak, unconvincing and disgusting.) So, should leaders like this be "put up agains the wall," as Greta suggested? She has apologized, saying she was not advocating violence. And I believe her. But consider this.Surely the increasingly deadly storms that our children will now face, due to this latest proof that our leaders have no backbone, will prove way more violent than anything Greta is accused of suggesting.

Larry Powell,

Shoal Lk. MB

Hogs and Water. A private citizen appeals to the Premier of Manitoba.

Dear Premier Brian Pallister,

It’s time for you and your government to stop playing Russian Roulette with the health of our waterways. Mr. Premier, you need to implement the “precautionary principle” and immediately stop the unbridled expansion of factory pig barns in the province. Scores of huge new barns have been going up - often in the face of opposition from nearby residents - for well over a year now, ever since your government slashed important environmental, health and safety regulations in order to make it happen. 

Lake Winnipeg, transformed into the bright, blue-green hue of poisonous algae.
Photo by European Space Agency.

There’s already plenty of both “circumstantial,” and scientific evidence that hog waste has played a role in reducing Lake Winnipeg to a mucky mess which can be seen from space (above).

Pigs have outnumbered people by the millions in our province for many years now. And that imbalance will only be widening with industry expansion. Hogs produce much more waste than humans. And, except for accidental releases, human sewage is treated while hog slurry - spread on vast areas of food crops as a fertilizer - is not.

And, instead of acting in the financial interests of foreign corporations, which now control Manitoba’s slaughtering facilities, your government should be thinking instead of your own citizens. 

For example, the ability of many cottage communities along the south basin to enjoy their properties this summer has been ruined by a dramatic buildup of poisonous algae which has collected along their beaches and seriously sickened some of their pets who drank the water. Some cottagers say, it’s the worst they’ve ever seen.

Could the reason your government has conducted no proper water testing be, it’ll show just how much the industry is contributing to the pollution? So, why not do the testing, gather the scientific data which has been lacking so far, and settle the issue, once and for all?

I believe many Manitobans share these concerns. If you do, please contact your local MLAs and tell them so.

Sincerely,
Larry Powell
Shoal Lake MB

Just Say NO to 285 new hog factories in Manitoba!

Letter to the Editor

Virden Empire-Advance

May 3, 2018 01:57 PM

Rural people could wake up one morning to find a factory hog barn next door, and there will be nothing they can say or do about it if the hog industry gets its way and the Pallister government passes Bill 19, The Planning Amendment Act.

Bill 19 gives local councils and planning districts the “choice” to get rid of the mandatory conditional use approval process for large livestock operations, along with all the legal protections the public currently has. In so choosing, municipalities give away the ability to set conditions such as requiring manure storage covers and shelterbelts to attempt to control odour and require development agreements to make the hog factory pay for road building and maintenance, instead of taxpayers.

All municipalities will have to review their zoning by-laws and decide within one year if they want to control large factory hog and poultry operations, cattle and sheep feedlots on behalf of the people they are supposed to protect from harm or open the municipality to uncontrolled and unlimited livestock growth. Bill 19 changes the rules so that 25 people have to make formal objections to get a Municipal Board review. Immigrants and permanent residents are disqualified from participating. Imagine not being able to say anything about decisions that could harm your investment in a home, farm and community.

Livestock operations would merely have to get a Provincial manure storage permit and water rights licence to get building. These processes are secret and “business information” is private, protected by law. So, nobody will be able to find out if provincial officials and industry are doing things right. Last fall, many rules were weakened. For example, almost all of the oversight of the construction of manure storages was given to the engineers building them in the name of “red tape reduction”. Provincial regulators allowed manure storages to be built in high water tables, flood plains, marsh and ground water sensitive areas. This practice will get worse.

The last “line of defense” for rural people against inadequate and weakened provincial regulations are local councils who put the interest of their constituents first. Those who truly care about what happens to people’s health, quality of life and homes, non-industrial farmers livelihoods, animal welfare and our air, water and environmental health.

Why is this Bill before the legislature? Because a 2017 internal advisory brief to cabinet identified “public conflict” and “public pressure” as impediments to the hog industry getting what it wants – 285 more pig factories so that Maple Leaf and HyLife Foods can increase their profits by exporting 95 per cent of Manitoba produced pork while leaving rural people to suffer the consequences.

Why would any intelligent farmer want to invest in an industry where hog finisher producers lost money in eight out of the past nine years? Manitoba Pork Council’s numbers, not mine.

Councils and rural people must raise their voices now, loud and clear against Bill 19 before it’s too late.

Ruth Pryzner

Alexander, Manitoba

Blogger Warns of Creeping "Trumpism" (Letter)

Dear Editor,

It’s like a train wreck in slow-motion.

Just when you think Trump has made the worst possible choice for his cabinet, he announces another who’s even worse. 

Rick Perry, the wacka-doodle ex-Governor of Texas, is a sad example. Perry couldn’t remember the name of one of the government departments he pledged to eliminate when he tried to run for President four years ago. Now, Trump has named Perry to head it!  (It’s the department of Energy. You know, the “trivial” one responsible for the U.S. nuclear program!) 

My Latest Letter. Will it Make You Angry? I Hope So! (But Not at Me!)

by Larry Powell

It’s like a nightmare in slow-motion.

Just when you think Trump has made the worst possible choice for his cabinet, he announces another who’s even worse. 

Writer Laments Absence of MP From Poverty Debate.

Dear Editor, 

I’m disappointed that our Conservative Member of Parliament, Robert Sopuck did not attend the forum on child poverty here in Neepawa recently. 

A Canadian Senior Citizen's Open Letter to the Minister of Agriculture

Dear Minister Ritz,

I am a senior citizen (a scientist & a retired Professor from the University of Toronto). I am writing to you concerning your statements last April at an international conference in Saskatchewan (“Feeding the Global Middle Class”), regarding GMOs. You were quoted as saying (in the Western Producer): “Industry slow to defend GMOs”.

A  ground sprayer at work in Manitoba. PinP photo.

Actually, in my opinion, and in the opinion of tens-of-thousands of independent scientists globally: GMOs should be banned (& not DEFENDED!). The reason is simple: GMOs were “created” through a massive fraud in the United States about 25 years ago, then “exported” globally by a transnational cartel, and have never been tested adequately for safety in the food-chain.