If you can’t take them to the slaughter plant.
Farmers may have to euthanize and dispose of more than 130,000 hogs in eastern Canada as a months-long strike at a pork processor leaves a backlog of animals.
Olymel’s processing facility in Vallee-Jonction, Quebec, which usually slaughters 36,000 hogs each week, has been shut since April 28, when employees walked out. The company has been sending some of the animals to the U.S. and western Canada, an alternative that still leaves 15,000 pigs behind every week, according to David Duval, the president of the Eleveurs de porcs du Quebec, which represents the province’s producers.
I lived in the vicinity of Brooks, Alberta in the mid-1980s. Lakeside Packers was located just west of town and, during the time I was in the area, its union was on strike. That lasted for some 18 months but, as I recall, the plant still managed to stay in business.
It was still privately-owned when I moved elsewhere. In between time, though, the place changed owners at least once since then and, from what I’ve gathered, it’s no longer unionized. Many of the employees were temporary foreign workers, largely because they were cheaper.
From what I’ve heard, that hasn’t had a good effect on Brooks.
I came out to Alberta in 1975. Brooks was on strike then, camped out in the highway median south of the plant. That scene has been in play ever since. The foreign workers hadn’t shown up yet. Brooks was a nice town back then. Can’t say much for the place today.
Yup. That’s where they were, just across from where the feedlot was.
Brooks was a lot like Fort St. John back then, though with more traffic lights and cable TV. It was a place where people didn’t have to lock their doors. They do now.
Oilymeat will import foreign workers then send them to Alberta when the strike is over. Quebec never loses.
Wonder why they can’t just put up signs on the highway or take ads out in the local newspaper/radio station offering pork at cut rate prices? But the buyer must buy at least half a hog (not a problem if you have a freezer) and they’ll cut it to specifications (roasts, bacon, chops, etc)
I think they have to have a licensed Abattoir do the killin and cuttin.
If you had to slaughter and process your own animals that you raised, especially in large quantities, it begins to take a toll on your mental health.
I did it and to this day I have, shall we say, issues.
Being a farmer you tend to sub that stuff out.
Ohhhhhhh mommmaaaaa …. just think of all those “Guest Workers” doin the Jobs that no Canadian will do. What’s to become of them?
No hogs to cut up, no income. It’s tough when your “essential” job just got booted into the “non essential” classification.
I guess auctioning them off is illegal, and ya need a permit to buy a pig.
A permit to buy a pig?Which part of China are you from?
In Peterboro, Ontario, you need a permit to let your cat have kittens.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
If I lived in Ontario Oh hell not a fking hope
They need to supply these hogs with condoms to cut down on their numbers … or better yet’ vaccinate them.
Often wondered what happened to David Duval. One day you’re hitting 300 yard drives and winning the British Open, the next you’re a spokesman for the Quebec porcine industry.
The strange calculus of life I guess.
That said – Less live pigs in Quebec means a good opportunity for farmers to empty their gigantic open air pig shit lagoons which I’ve been told overflows with every rainfall and makes its way into the St.Lawrence. Quebec’s dirty little secret that gets very little mention if none at all. Truth be told…it’s a perennial ecological mess courtesy of a huge and powerful pork producing Province that in turn makes gov’t wonks in Ottawa look the other way for fear of pissing quebec farmers off if just a hint of regulations are proposed.
You’ll have to do a whole lot more than 130,000 pigs to make a difference though.
Although, this may be a ploy to cast the union in a very bad light and put a quick end to the whole dispute.
They should like that flush in Cape Breton and Newfoundland. Can fish eat that crap?
Ever drive the south shore of the St Lawrence to the maritimes? The air is tough to breath all the way to Riviere du Loup from about Quebec City on, especially in summer.
Is that so?
Maybe it depends on the prevailing winds?
I disagree. Also Riviere du Loup is a great little town, followed by Trois Pistoles (very Shakespearian name) and then Rimouski. Well worth a stay and maybe get a dive on the Empress.
I doubt they are allowing the pit to overflow. Liquid manure is valuable as fertilizer. It’s pumped out and spread on the field.
If you live nearby you know when they are pumping.
It’s the cities along the river that let the effluent go not the farmers.
Yup.
A dirty job spreading but somebody’s gots to do it.
In indiana in the springtime you can smell it for miles, when the farmers are getting their fields ready to plant corn, and lots of it.
Cow is the least offensive. Chicken is by far the worst!
You can only do that for so long before it becomes too saturated. And there’s only so much open land available. And when one considers pigs are absolute shit machines…into the lagoon it goes.
I hope all the pigs in Quebec die and rot.
Whoa … not all Quebecker are pigs, there many English folks living there as well.
That comment was not the Best West.
Sue the union
Hmmm, this explains the high prices for bacon I noticed this morning in SuperStore(Loblaws), $7/lb.
Wagon train headed into Indian territory. Wagon master asks an old prospector who lived in peace with them what their mood was. He said they were planting a bacon tree. It didn’t make any sense, but sounded peaceful enough. Later that day the terrified wagon master collapsed exhausted at the prospector’s tent. After he rested a bit, he told the old timer that only he had survived. He asked if he was sure of the information he gave them earlier that fateful day. The old timer scratched his head, and after a moment said “it might have been a ham bush.” – unknown (forgotten) source
‘Tweren’t no slaughter. ‘Twere a massacree.