As far as Jim Murray is concerned, the likelihood of a cattle slaughter plant being built in Winnipeg is about the same as Manitoba replacing Mexico as the most popular winter holiday destination in North America.
“My opinion is that they’ll never kill an animal. They’ll never build a plant where they will kill an animal,” said Murray, a cattle producer from Portage la Prairie, Man.
The “they” in Murray’s comment is the Manitoba Cattle Enhancement Council (MCEC), an organization with the mandate of expanding cattle slaughter in Manitoba.
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From 2006 to the end of 2011, cattle producers in the province have contributed approximately $5 million in check-off dollars to MCEC.
But after six years of paying a levy of $2 per head on every animal they sell, many, or possibly most cattle ranchers in the province, feel the same way as Murray.
In fact, MCEC checkoff has become a running joke among cattle producers. Many call it the “Rosann tax” — a reference to Manitoba’s former agriculture minister Rosann Wowchuk, one of the chief architects of the council.
While some producers openly mock MCEC, others that once supported it have lost faith because the council has failed to deliver a long-promised slaughter plant in Winnipeg.
“They might as well close their doors…. It’s gone (on) for six years and they haven’t done anything,” Murray said.
Supported by the $2 producer levy and a matching $2 levy from Manitoba taxpayers, the council was supposed to finance the construction of new plants, or the expansion of existing slaughter facilities in the province.
The Manitoba government created the council in 2006 as a response to BSE and the related crisis in the Canadian cattle industry.
Manitoba didn’t have a federally inspected cattle slaughter plant and MCEC set out to fill that void.
More than a year after its inception, the council invested in its first and what would become its most controversial project.
In 2007, MCEC committed $1.2 million to the proponents of Natural Prairie Beef, a group of Manitoba cattle producers who wanted to build a slaughter plant for animals raised without growth hormones and minimal antibiotics.
In July 2008, Natural Prairie Beef announced it had purchased a former Maple Leaf Foods hog processing plant in Winnipeg, with the intent of refitting it for beef slaughter. MCEC committed an additional $1.2 million to support the purchase, increasing its investment in Natural Prairie Beef to $2.4 million.
The leaders of MCEC and Natural Prairie said the converted facility would be a federally inspected plant called Keystone Processors, which would process 250 to 500 head of cattle per day by 2010.
The odds of Natural Prairie Beef succeeding increased in summer 2009 when the federal government announced a $50 million loan program to increase slaughter capacity in regions, like Manitoba, that lacked federally inspected facilities.
But the plans began to go off the rails in the fall of 2009 when Barry Todd, Manitoba’s deputy agriculture minister, became chair of MCEC, said Kelly Penner, the former president and chief executive officer of Natural Prairie Beef.
“That was the signal that this thing wasn’t going to make it,” said Penner, a cattle producer from Douglas, Man.
The council was supposed operate at arm’s length from government and the appointees who initially managed MCEC knew their role was to support private enterprise, not to run the show, Penner said.
Only a few days after Todd took over as chair, Ottawa announced a loan of $10 million to help build the $30 million Keystone Processors plant. As well, MCEC committed an additional $7.5 million to the plant.
With that kind of taxpayer and producer dollars at stake, the provincial government wanted more control over the project, which is why the deputy minister of agriculture slid into the role of MCEC chair.
Once that happened, Keystone Processors was no longer a partnership between Natural Prairie Beef and MCEC. It became a provincial government project, Penner said.
“It turned so political after that $10 million announcement,” he said. “We (Natural Prairie) had the respect of both levels of government because it was viewed as a private entity…. Then all of the sudden the MCEC steps in and (starts to) manage it.”
The Western Producer requested an interview with Todd regarding MCEC but he wasn’t immediately available.
Not long after Todd’s appointment, Penner resigned from Natural Prairie Beef and Keystone Processors. His feeling that the project would unravel came to fruition in July 2011.
Citing deficiencies in the business plan, the federal government pulled its $10 million loan to Keystone Processors. Shelly Glover, a Conservative MP from Winnipeg, said the original plan was to renovate the Maple Leaf Foods hog plant.
However, the leaders of Keystone Processors demolished the facility and planned to build from scratch.
Despite the loss of the loan, the MCEC vowed to press on and began seeking replacement investors in the slaughter plant project, which was renamed ProNatur in the fall of 2011. The rebranding hasn’t helped because Manitoba cattle producers have grown weary of MCEC’s familiar refrain: that it continues to search for investors and it might break ground on the new plant in 30 to 90 days.
“It’s ridiculous…. There is absolutely nothing to show what they’re taking our money for,” said Don Winnicky, a cattle rancher from Piney, Man.
“(This summer) I happened to drive past where their proposed plant is supposed to be. It’s just a parking lot. There’s nothing there.”
This summer, producers in southeastern Manitoba suffered through extremely dry conditions and dozens will have to buy hay to feed their animals this winter.
Consequently, cattle farmers in Winnicky’s area are particularly irritated that they are contributing $2 per head to an entity that has accomplished nothing in six years instead of spending that money on feed, Winnicky said.
For his part, Penner has moved on from his days leading Natural Prairie Beef, as he just opened a meat and deli shop in Winnipeg. Yet, given the XL Foods recall, it’s obvious to Penner that Manitoba’s cattle industry needs a sizable slaughter plant located within the province.
Manitoba needs a slaughterhouse that can handle 10 percent of the province’s cattle herd because producers need a marketing option besides Alberta or the U.S., he noted.
Regardless, the plant can’t remain a proposal forever. Either build it or shut down MCEC, Penner said.
“The producers have no problem with a check off… if they see results. But enough is enough already.”
