Government of Saskatchewan's Hog Venture:
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Nipawin - July 20, 2000 - By: Mario deSantis | |
relentless policies |
I don't have knowledge of the agricultural industry, but today, as I read Murray Mandryk's |
article "Hog in the headlines(1)" I wanted to write a few lines and warn our readers of the | |
relentless policies of this government to further kill the family farm, pollute the environment | |
and increase the wealth of the few and privileged. | |
Big Sky |
Mandryk described quite well the regressive policies of this government in the hog industry. |
Mandryk claims that the government is investing $15 million into Big Sky Farms Inc. | |
because our business climate is not conducive to attract private investment dollars, even though | |
this government is not imposing restrictive environmental controls on huge hog barn operations | |
and exempts hog operators from certain Labour Standards Act provisions such as overtime, | |
working conditions and vacation pay. | |
astronomic social costs |
The direction to support giant hog barns doesn't sustain the rural economy and our government |
doesn't want to learn how small hog farms are thriving in Manitoba without any governmental | |
support and it doesn't want to learn about the astronomic social costs caused by huge hog | |
operators in the United States(2). Environmentalist Donella Meadows states that | |
tightly |
"in any functional democracy massive animal-feeding operations, if permitted |
at all, would be tightly regulated, fined for their infractions, taxed like everyone |
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else, and made to clean up their messes at their own expense(3)." |
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relaxing pollution and labour standards |
And in Saskatchewan we have no hope that this situation will occur since our own government |
is putting money into huge hog farms, and our own government is protecting this industry by | |
legislatively relaxing pollution and labour standards. | |
-------------Endnotes: | |
Hog in the headlines, by Murray Mandryk, The Leader-Post, July 19, 2000, Regina, Saskatchewan | |
You can refer to the following sites to know more about industrial hog farming: www.hogwatch.org www.factoryfarm.org www.cfra.org www.nrdc.org/nrdcpro/factor/aafinx.html | |
How Campaign Reform Could Clean Up a log of Hog Manure, Donella Meadows' The Global Citizen, January 20, 2000 http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/meadows/hog_manure.html |