Well, neither Manitoba premier Gary Doer nor agriculture minister Rosann Wowchuk were heckled at the hog industry rally in Morris Monday night.
They weren’t there.
Ralph Goodale and Wayne Easter of the Federal Liberal party were there, as was provincial Liberal boss Jon Gerrard. Merv Tweed, James Bezan and other Conservative MPs were there, as were a number of conservative MLAs and leader Hugh McFadyen.
And about 500 suffering hog producers and supporters.
There were no federal NDP MPs present, either. And no NDP MLAS.
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In the past few years, with the NDP provincial government backing away from its support for the OlyWest slaughter plant for Winnipeg and its red-lining of the Red River valley for hog barn development with Bill 17, many have darkly speculated that the provincial government doesn’t just not care about the industry, but in fact would like it to shrivel and die. When it became clear Monday night that no provincial government representatives would appear at the rally, that kind of talk took over, with more of a tone of disgust than outrage, since few producers seemed surprised by the apparent snub.
The NDP probably won’t pay much of a political price for not attending the rally. The hog production areas tend to vote Tory, so this isn’t their base that’s in trouble. And almost no urban media showed up at the event, which was poorly timed and placed to get attention.
I wondered in my previous posting whether the biggest cut to the North American sow herd would occur here in southern Manitoba. After the Monday night rally, it seemed clear there was not much of a safety net for the industry to fall into, so there’s no reason to think the biggest cuts aren’t going to come here.
