The Canadian Chicken Marketing Agency has once again turned
down Ontario’s request for specialty-market production rights, specifically to
supply the kosher market.
The directors from other provinces and those representing
processors voted against Ontario at agency meetings again this week, turning
down Ontario’s longstanding requests for the right to increase chicken production
to satisfy market demand, particularly for niche markets.
Ontario’s kosher market was shorted when Thai Kosher Poultry
of Toronto was bought by Sargent Farms which does not process to kosher
standards.
That left those who want kosher birds trying to meet their
needs from a processor in Montreal, but that processor is charging
significantly higher prices.
There is a group in Toronto that wants to revive the Thai
Kosher plant to process for the kosher market, but it can’t buy chickens under
the marketing board’s policies to ration supplies among processors.
It will not make chickens available to newcomers and, in
fact, is also shorting CAMI International Poultry Inc. of Welland so it’s
unable to meet the demand for Hong Kong dressed birds (heads and feet on) that
are popular with Asians. There is a huge Chinese population in the Greater
Toronto area.
The Ontario chicken board has made a proposal to serve
specialty markets, but the Association of Ontario Chicken Processors is
opposed.
It filed an appeal with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture
and Food Appeal Tribunal to block introduction of that policy, but withdrew
earlier this year to undertake negotiations with the marketing board.
Those negotiations failed and so the appeal is on again,
scheduled for Dec. 11 and 12 at OMAF’s tribunal offices in Guelph.
However, even if the Ontario board wins that appeal, it
would be left short of chicken for the Ontario market and would only be able to
satisfy the requests for specialty markets by shorting others.
As for the CAMI situation, the judge handling CAMI’s
challenge of an Ontario-Quebec deal that cut off CAMI’s access to Quebec-grown
chicken has ordered the chicken board to stop stalling and let the case proceed.
CAMI’s challenge of the federal government’s policy that
keeps it from importing birds from the U.S. is stalled because the federal
government has changed lawyers.
And where, pray tell, is Ontario Premier and Agriculture Minister Kathleen Wynne in the face of this persistent chicken-industry fiasco.
No doubt making speeches about growing the Ontario agriculture industry. Talk, talk, talk. Just another Toronto wind tunnel.
