Moose Jaw city officials are trying to stop SPI from closing its hog slaughter plant there.
They want the Saskatchewan hog board, which owns Moose Jaw Packers Ltd., to sell it to any bidder with a reasonable offer, but they say SPI officials are noncommittal about the plant’s future.
And they say the pork board has been shortchanging the plant of pigs.
“It’s being left out in the cold in the distribution of pigs, to the point where it will not be viable any more,” said acting mayor Peter Norys.
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The city sent a letter to Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow asking the province to make sure the board sells the plant “if there’s any decent offer,” said Norys. Moose Jaw wants to ensure the plant keeps running, whoever owns it.
“We don’t want to lose that industry,” he said.
City officials were excited by rumors that someone was interested in buying the plant, and had toured the facility last week.
But when they talked to SPI officials, the city received only vague replies, and it has never been able to contact SPI chair John Germs, Norys said.
Germs, reached at home, said “Moose Jaw is involved in negotiations.”
He wouldn’t say with whom, but verified that SPI is willing to sell the Moose Jaw plant.
“Anything is for sale if the price is right,” Germs said.
SPI laid off half its Moose Jaw workers recently when it decided to stop cutting meat at the plant. It now only slaughters and ships hog carcasses.
Management of the plant was recently at the core of SPI’s firing of its longtime general manager Jim Morris. Germs said SPI feels the Moose Jaw plant is now “a liability.”
Management has been told to “turn the plant around and extract profits.”
According to Germs’ report in SPI’s newsletter, the organization has decided to send hogs to the highest bidder from now on.
Saskatchewan Agriculture deputy minister Terry Scott said the province has no intention of influencing SPI’s handling of the plant and its future.
“We wouldn’t, as government, be directly involved in any decisions on Moose Jaw Packers, since it is owned by SPI,” said Scott.
“The best we can do to help the processing and slaughter in the province is to develop the hog industry and ensure the hog numbers are there to support the slaughtering and processing in the province,” Scott said.
