It is the completion of a deal in 2018 when it bought Cericola’s plant supply quota and plants at Bradford and in Quebec.
The value of the original deal was not revealed.
Last year it sold the former Cericola plant in Quebec to Giannone Poultry of St. Cuthbert, Que.
Maple Leaf is building Canada’s largest poultry-processing plant at London and that will lead to the closing of its plants in Brampton, Toronto and St. Marys.
So the indications are that Maple Leaf is paying at least $40 million simply for the privilege of buying Ontario-grown chickens. I thought the supply management system is supposed to ensure adequate supplies of quality chicken for Canadians.
So now we learn that Canadian consumers pay inflated prices for chicken - enough that farmers pay big bucks to buy quota - and secondly pay for plant supply quota.
This is a ridiculous. Freer trade, if not completely free trade, with the U.S. chicken industry is overdue. The industries on both sides of the border use the same rations costing the same and the same genetics.
Maybe it could be justified if the supply management system was for nice friendly family farms, but the truth is the majority of the chickens are raised on farms owned by large corporations such as P+H (New Life Feed Mills) and the Schlegel conglomerate.
