PICTURE BUTTE, Alta. – When prime minister Paul Martin announced a new aid program in Marchfor hard-hit beef producers, it was noaccident that he came to Picture Butte.
Perhaps nowhere else have the direct impacts of BSE been as deeply felt. Almost half the 1.5 million head of feedlot space in Alberta surrounds Picture Butte. The town even bills itself as the livestock feeding capital of Canada.
When international borders closed May 20 to Canadian cattle after the discovery of BSE in an Alberta cow, feedlots here were hit hard and fast.
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With no live cattle crossing the U.S. border and only a limited amount of beef moving, the financial pipeline to the southern Alberta town and the local feedlots dried up faster than a garden hose kinked in the middle.
At the local Case farm equipment dealer-ship, business in the service department is down 20 percent.
Business at the local tire shop is “way down,” said owner Ross Doenz.
“It’s been horrible,” said Doenz, who was stung with several unpaid bills from truck drivers who lost their jobs and their trucks when the livestock hauling industry cameto a halt.
Even business at his wife’s hair salon next door is down 30 percent.
“You can’t take that much money out of the economy and not have an effect,” he said.
The cattle feeding industry estimated lost cattle sales to the U.S. alone cost the industry $11 million each day. That does not count lost jobs from spin-off industries.
Arie Koppe, a veterinarian whose business relies on farms and feedlots in area, said the strain has started to show.
“It’s like a debilitating disease has hit the community,” Koppe said.
“It’s like a cancer slowly spreading. Everyone keeps a very brave face, but it’s very scary.”
Rick Paskal, one of the largest feedlot owners in the area, said the town has been forever changed. For years local feedlot owners tried to attract young families to the community to live and work long term in their feedlots.
“We had a real vibrant community here,” said Paskal, who also operates Butte Grain Merchants.
With more debt than cash, feedlots had no choice but to lay off staff. Before BSE, 57 people worked at various operations owned by Paskal. Now he has about 30 employees. Other feedlots have similar stories.
“Those people have been displaced, they’ve been pulled out of school and friendships have been severed,” said Paskal, who added there isn’t a person in the community, including the children, who hasn’t been affected by BSE.
“In one year we’ve chased those people away.”
At the start of this school year 210 children were enrolled in the Dorothy Dalgliesh School from kindergarten to Grade 6. Now there are 195. This fall, principal Dean Hawkins has budgeted for 185 kids to enrol, a 12 percent drop.
Fewer kids mean less money and fewer teachers. Hawkins estimated he will have to lay off the equivalent of 11/2 teachers from his 12 person staff.
Every child who left the school has done so as a direct result of BSE, he said.
In downtown Picture Butte, pharmacist Phil Mack has become as fluent in the language of cattle politics and BSE as he is in prescription drugs.
“We follow the news very closely,” said Mack, the owner of Price’s Pharmacy.
He offers some local statistics. In the past year sales of chronic care medication such as heart drugs have dropped as people pinch pennies. Sales of sleeping pills and anti-depressants are up as people try to cope.
“This town doesn’t need any more despair.”
Kent Hage, a local ReMax real estate agent, said the biggest impact has been the psychological damage that the BSE crisis had on his friends, who are accustomed to making million dollar decisions.
“Before, they were positive people. Now, it’s like they’ve lost their confidence.”
Surprisingly, land prices have not collapsed. While there are inquiries for sales, no one wants to buy when they can’t predict aborder reopening. On the flip side, nobody wants to sell and start an avalanche of collapsing prices.
“It’s an eerie calm,” Hage said.
Bert Foord, owner of a grocery and variety store, said people just want things to return to normal, but there’s a growing realization the community will be permanently changed.
“What will normal look like when it’s done?” Foord said.
Picture Butte mayor Jon Stevens said there is more to the BSE crisis than desperation. People are also pulling together to support their neighbours and the cattle industry. The original hamburger sale, where beef is sold at low prices from the back of a freezer truck, was held in Picture Butte. The town had a street dance and barbecue. Local churches came together for a community service.
Town council members attended all the province’s support-beef rallies, froze taxes and user fees for 2004 and decreased the stipend that they are paid.
“When May 20 hit, this council decided it simply would not put its head in the sand,” said Stevens, a retired bank manager.
The town, in conjunction with the Lethbridge and District Business Development Centre Association, commissioned a survey of businesses to get a snapshot of the community.
The report found that while businesses saw a 68 percent decrease in sales and revenue this year, they are also projecting a 62 percent increase in sales and revenue for the next one to two years.
“Certainly we all have brave faces, we’re all concerned, but we’re not going to give up,” Stevens said.
He pointed to the construction of two long-term care facilities in town as proof people want to stay in Picture Butte.
Just outside town the Picture Butte Golf Club has apparently been relatively untouched by the BSE crisis. The club recently added another nine holes to its now 27-hole course to keep up with demand. It has also increased staff to 52 from 40.
“We’re as busy as ever,” said club manager Sue O’Donnell, who thinks people need recreation, even in stressful times.
Rick Casson, Lethbridge MP and former Picture Butte mayor, said people in the comm-unity are resilient. He points to the closure of the Rogers Sugar factory in Picture Butte in 1977 as a time when the community could have collapsed, but didn’t. Instead, the area diversified into irrigation and livestock.
“We’ll come through this,” Casson said.
“The town won’t dry up and blow away.”
