Steinbach MLA, Kelvin Goertzen, says while he is pleased the federal Conservative government has come to the table with a program that will offer some assistance to pork producers being devastated by the current hog market, he says it is inexcusable that the provincial NDP government is missing in action and not a partner in the program.
“These types of programs are traditionally jointly funded between the federal and provincial governments and when one of the partners is not there, it leaves the program short of what is needed,” said Goertzen. “The federal Conservative government has obviously heard and listened to pork producers who cannot hang on much longer but the NDP have again turned its back on the industry and many rural Manitobans.”
On Saturday, federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz announced a $75 million program that is intended to provide support to those hog farmers who wish to ride out the current downturn in the industry or assist those who wish to leave hog production all together. However, the provincial NDP government are not contributing anything, leaving producers with a weaker program than what was hoped for said Goertzen .
“Right from the beginning of this crisis the NDP have turned their backs on pork producers. They didn’t attend the meeting with hundreds of producers in Morris to hear their concerns and they have not partnered together with the federal government, leaving the program as something less than it could have been,” said Goertzen. “By turning their backs on this industry, they are turning their backs on the thousands of people who are directly and indirectly involved in the industry and the thousands more who benefit from a strong pork sector in the province.”
Despite some signs of optimism early in the year, the pork industry has been devastated by the combined impact of high input costs, a high Canadian dollar, protectionist trade practices such as Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) and the H1N1 virus which has been poorly characterised and reduced pork consumption in some countries.
