A recent rally to protest a Manitoba law that bans hog expansion in much of the province didn’t produce the usual noise that typifies demonstrations.
Instead, the 200 producers gathered at the legislature wore long faces and listened to somber speeches, looking and sounding like a eulogy for the province’s hog industry.
Only hours after the rally Sept. 24, Manitoba’s NDP government used its majority to pass the controversial legislation, which imposes a permanent moratorium on hog barn expansion in eastern and central Manitoba.
The passing of the third reading of Bill 17 ends a vocal five-month fight against the legislation, which was introduced by the NDP this spring as a way to reduce nutrient loading and the related algae blooms in Lake Winnipeg.
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The Manitoba Pork Council promptly responded with a website and bought billboard ads in Winnipeg that labelled Bill 17 as the Anti-Farm Bill and asked the public to help kill it.
More than 400 people made submissions at public consultations, forcing the government to extend the hours of the public sessions to evenings and weekends in June.
Eric Peters, a hog producer who attended the late September rally, said the government had no intention of listening to input from farmers or the public.
“Regardless of the alternative solutions that have been presented, government has its agenda and has chosen to move ahead with this bill,” said Peters, who has a 4,000 sow, farrow to finish operation north of Steinbach.
The government also ignored the science, said Doug Martin, who has a grain farm and hog barns near East Selkirk.
“They don’t even look at the studies …. All the research by soil conservation groups and research at the University of Manitoba, they just reject it all.”
In May, during the height of the public battle over Bill 17, Michael Trevan, dean of the University of Manitoba’s agriculture department, said the moratorium was not based on sound science.
Manitoba Pork used this scientific criticism when arguing that hog barns are responsible for only 1.5 percent of the phosphorus flowing into Lake Winnipeg.
Nonetheless, conservation minister Stan Struthers defended the legislation throughout the debate, consistently saying it was needed to protect Manitoba’s water.
“Our position from day one has been the industry can grow but not at the expense of the environment,” he said.
