BOISSEVAIN, Man. – Mistrust is like a dark cloud hanging over rural communities that are considering new hog barn projects, municipal officials agreed at a meeting here.
But rural reeves and village, town and city mayors couldn’t agree on how to clear the suspicions.
Many at the Boissevain district mayors and reeves meeting of Association of Manitoba Municipalities said AMM should resist the provincial government’s plan to limit local authority to approve or reject hog barn proposals. The provincial government may force municipalities to create development plans laying out clear rules for intensive livestock operations. Municipalities would lose the power to judge the environmental merits of a proposal. That would be done by provincial experts.
Read Also
Huge Black Sea flax crop to provide stiff competition
Russia and Kazakhstan harvested huge flax crops and will be providing stiff competition in China and the EU.
Municipalities would only be able to judge whether an operation fits the criteria laid out in its development plan, which would eliminate conditional-use hearings.
Some municipal leaders said conditional use hearings, in which intensive livestock operation proposals are judged by municipal councilors in open meetings, should be maintained.
“It’s an opportunity for people to hear, to express themselves,” said one reeve.
“These people should be given an opportunity to express their feelings.”
But Brandon mayor Dave Burgess warned fellow leaders that the hog barn approval process is too difficult and that could be big trouble.
“We lost the cattle industry a few years ago,” said Burgess.
“We just let it go. We were the dominant player in the country and that has been lost. I’d like us to stay on top in hog production.”
Burgess, who hopes the Maple Leaf hog slaughter plant in his city will be able to double production soon, said dozens of new hog barns are needed in the province, but the conditional-use hearings slow and threaten necessary industry expansion.
“I’ve always felt it’s been too divisive. There have been blowups all over the province,” said Burgess.
“That could easily be avoided by the province having more of a say in what goes on and how it’s designed. They’re the ones who have the experts.”
Burgess said a second shift at the Brandon plant and the creation of hog barns to supply it would provide 800 new jobs in Brandon and 1,200 in rural areas.
AMM president Stu Briese said he didn’t like the province controlling too much of the approval process.
He said the hog industry and the government have a “knee jerk” reaction whenever they hear about a hog barn controversy, but don’t realize that most developments go ahead without a fuss.
“There are lots of municipalities that still have the door way open,” said Briese.
The Manitoba government has not introduced changes to the approval process, but it announced in July 2002 that it intended to.
AMM urban vice-president Ron Bell said he believes the government will try to force municipalities to spell out intensive livestock operation standards in their development plans.
