It’s time for Ontario Agriculture Minister to get out into the countryside and visit some small local abattoirs and stand alone meat processors to witness first hand the problems they are facing trying to comply with tough new provincial food safety regulations.
That is the call from Conservative MPP and Agriculture Critic Ernie Hardeman on news the Province fell almost 8 million dollars short in funding these small facilities to upgrade to meet the new Provincial standards.
He says the smaller local facilities should not be held up to the same level of scrutiny and regulation as the massive federally regulated slaughter houses.
Hardeman the government has an obligation to first understand the concerns of the smaller local operators and then ensure there is enough money available to help them upgrade their facilities.
He fears if the government fails to help these local producers, then the whole local food movement will be in jeopardy as one of the critical links in the local food chain will simply disappear.
Hardeman says if local abattoirs vanish, then producers will have to ship to the major big city slaughterhouses, and then that produce wont come back to local farmers markets.
He says that means then the only place to purchase meat will be off the supermarket shelf.