CUT KNIFE, Sask. – At first blush it was just another town hall meeting about another controversial hog barn proposal. But this one came with a twist.
Amidst the usual concerns about manure smells, a new complaint arose from the floor, one based on an affront to the soul rather than the nasal passage.
“This is a spiritual issue. It’s not economic, it’s not financial, it’s spiritual,” said Poundmaker Cree Nation band member Tyrone Tootoosis, who organized the public meeting at the Cut Knife curling rink.
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Many band members and area residents are only now learning about a project that has been in the works since March 2002. It is a joint venture between an Alberta company called Synergetic Special Projects and the Poundmaker band.
The band is to provide the land, labour and act as guarantor on a $3.5 million loan with Farm Credit Canada. That guarantee requires using property gained under Treaty Land Entitlement as collateral, a commitment that has upset band members.
“The issue is not the hog barn amongst our people. It’s the issue of pawning our land for money,” said Tootoosis.
It goes against a strongly held belief in Indian culture that “land is life” and should be guarded carefully.
“I don’t believe we have become so civilized that we can adopt different values and beliefs to justify economic development of this nature, where we do the opposite of what we were told by our former leaders and our elders.”
Tootoosis said the band’s chief and council plowed ahead on the deal without a mandate from their constituents, and that Synergetic Special Projects is guilty of the same crime.
Bob Coulter, Synergetic’s chief communications officer, said his firm was under the impression the band’s governing body spoke on behalf of its people.
He said the developers did not want to go public with the proposal until it had federal government approval, which came through on Sept. 12.
Tootoosis had difficulty with that answer.
“You should have got the approval from the people first,” he said to a loud round of applause from the 90 band members and area residents in attendance.
Coulter told the crowd that Synergetic is affiliated with Pure Lean Inc., a company that builds “hog barns of the future.”
“We’re not about lagooning and pollution and smell,” he said.
“We’re an entirely new way of developing hogs.”
Pure Lean owns a 5,000-hog operation near Bow Island, Alta., and another one twice that size near Oyen, Alta.
Synergetic president Marjorie Malinowski said the barn proposed for the Poundmaker reserve would house feeder pigs in an environment endorsed by animal welfare groups.
Instead of using “disgusting lagoons,” animal waste would be controlled with a fine scattering of sawdust on the floor of the barn, which acts like kitty litter for pigs.
Pens are cleaned every day and the waste goes into a state-of-the-art compost system where it is converted into lawn fertilizer.
“There is no smell on these barns, there is no smell on these animals,” Malinowski told the Cut Knife crowd.
The pigs are steroid-free and fetch a premium of about $12 per hog. The Pure Lean system has the approval of eco-activist Robert Kennedy Jr.
But the presentations from the developers did little to satisfy the audience.
One band member asked Coulter why Synergetic wanted to locate the project on First Nations land. Coulter said there was more red tape but it was worth it because it would help address the high unemployment problem on the reserve.
“We wanted to make a difference. We really had a social agenda,” he said.
That response didn’t go over well. The band member who asked the question doubted that a big company would spend millions on a hog barn because it was “kind-hearted.” She wondered if there were tax advantages involved.
Coulter said there were, “but it’s only at the end of a very long and winding road.”
Gerome Desmarais, chair of the parks board at Atton’s Lake, a resort three kilometres west of the proposed hog barn, wondered if there were other advantages of locating the project on band land.
He said reserves are governed by federal environmental laws, which are more forgiving than provincial regulations.
Malinowski said the province has been invited to participate in the environmental impact assessment process, but as yet has not responded.
By the end of a sometimes heated question and answer session, there was lots of talk about the project being “dead in the water” and Malinowski seemed willing to accept that fate.
“We’re not interested in forcing our project on a group of people who don’t want it,” she said.
Synergetic officials will meet with Poundmaker’s chief and council this week to determine where the project stands.
