The Chair of Manitoba Pork Council says, with the provincial election now behind us, pork producers are hoping the provincial government will be prepared to take a serious look at concerns related to the passage of Bill 46, the Save Lake Winnipeg Act.
The Save Lake Winnipeg Act, passed in mid-June, contains new provisions to reduce the amount of phosphorus entering the lake including extending a 2008 moratorium on new hog barn construction in eastern Manitoba to cover the entire province.
During the election campaign a coalition of 15 Manitoba agricultural commodity groups came together to draw attention to their concerns over the passage of the bill.
Manitoba Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch says although there was a lot of attention draw to Bill 46 it was over-shadowed during the election campaign by other issues.
The was a lot of push from the commodity groups and also from Manitoba Pork Council with Bill 46 and there was a lot of coverage even in the media on Bill 46 but it seemed the politicians didn’t want to really discuss it very much during the election.
They had other issues and I think they maybe looked at it as a negative issue but we did have our opportunity, met with a lot of MLAs and we pushed the issue forward and even just as late as last week we had done some breakfasts with all the potential leaders.
Just last week I met with Premier Selinger, we did a breakfast with him and I had some very good discussion with the premier.
Hopefully going forward he’ll take this issue seriously and sit down and talk with the producers, sit down and talk with Manitoba Pork Council and see what kind of solution we can come up with going forward because if we don’t get a better solution going forward we will lose a lot of small family farms.
Kynoch says right now producers are waiting to see who will be appointed to the various cabinet posts.
He says he’s looking forward to his first meetings with representatives of the new government and now that the election is finished, he’s hopeful the issue will be taken seriously and that government and producers can work together to build a sustainable agriculture.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
