Submitted by the office of Welland Riding MP and NDP federal agricultural critic Malcolm Allen
(A brief note from Niagara At Large – Some in Niagara may remember that we have been through this before in the past decade or so with food processing plants closing down in the region and some of our farmers having no place else to market their fruit and other produce, leaving them with no choice but to pull out vines and orchards. Therefore, this is an issue worth paying close attention to.)
WELLAND, Ontario – The Conservatives’ ideological plan to eliminate food packaging standard sizing could result in thousands of good jobs being shipped to the United States, all because of a decision made by the Agriculture Minister with no consultation.
Niagara, Ontario area MP from the Welland riding and NDP agricultural critic Malcolm Allen
In response to a question asked by NDP Agriculture Critic MP Malcolm Allen (Welland), the government confirmed that no impact analysis was completed to defend the decision to eliminate food packaging sizing standards. This decision could have devastating effects on the food processing and agriculture industries throughout Ontario. There are approximately 160 food and beverage processors in the Niagara Region alone and approximately 3,000 in the province.
“It’s mindboggling how short-sighted and irresponsible these changes are,” said Allen. “There were no studies, no consultations and no industry input, despite the calls of small business owners, employees and even municipal representatives to look at the potential impacts. Thousands of good quality jobs in Southwestern Ontario are at risk because of (Agriculture Minister Gerry) Ritz’s failure on this file.”
The elimination of size standards for packaging means that factories will have to retool their machinery and production to adapt to these new rules. However, this is nothing more than a short-sighted move to ship food packaging jobs to the United States.
“Instead of keeping thousands of good jobs in communities across Niagara, the Conservatives are happy to ship our products to the United States and kill the Southern Ontario food packaging industry. There’s no good management in that,” concluded Allen.
Click HERE to see Malcolm Allen questioning the Minister of Agriculture in the House of Commons on this issue.
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