Citizens: stop factory farm hog production in Ontario
April 16, 2004
ONTARIO - The Ontario branch of the national Beyond Factory Farming Coalition is calling for a moratorium on the expansion of the hog industry until environmental, health, economic, and social implications of intensive livestock operations are adequately addressed.
Today, Canadians across the country are expressing their opposition to factory farming in a national day of action. In Ontario, demonstrators will be gathering in Hawkesbury, Ottawa, Toronto and Kincardine.
Louise Rock, a small farmer in Hawkesbury, applauds Quebec for the leadership that province has shown in setting up a moratorium on hog industry expansion. But she has seen many factory hog operations open up all over Eastern Ontario as a result.
“The large Quebec hog integrators are now pouring into Eastern Ontario. The provincial government must stop these polluters from simply crossing the border into Ontario now that they are unwelcome in Quebec.”
“We have eight million hogs in Ontario that produce twice as much waste as the human population. It is an environmental nightmare. Ontario desperately needs to match Quebec’s moratorium on the expansion of hog operation,” says Andrea Peart, Director of Health and Environment with Sierra Club of Canada. “If not, Ontario will bear the increasing environmental, social and economic costs that led Quebec to institute its moratorium.”
“Four years after Walkerton, clean water is still not a priority,’ stated Stephen Martin, Coordinator of Hogwatch Ontario. “In spite of its name, the Ontario Nutrient Management Act hurts small producers, encourages factory farms and will be detrimental to the environment.”
An Ipsos-Reid Poll released today shows that 189% of Canadians want provincial and federal government support to go to family farms with environmentally-friendly livestock production systems and not large corporate farms.
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For more information contact: Andrea Peart, Ottawa, Director, Health and Environment, Sierra Club of Canada, (613) 241-4611 Louise Rock, Hawkesbury, CEFEO, (514) 246-0703 (Français/English) John Welwood, Kincardine, Coalition of Concerned Citizens of Huron-Kinloss, (519) 395-0731
1These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/Council of Canadians poll conducted from March 30th to April 1st 2004. For the telephone survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1000 adult Canadians was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within ¬± 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were statistically weighted to ensure the sample’s regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data. Please visit www.ipsos-reid.com to view the survey findings.