Quebec hogs displacing Ontario’s

 

About 20,000 hogs per week are moving from Quebec to Ontario packing plants, Jim Long of Genesus said in a report on the Ontario Pork Congress in Stratford.

Long said the Quebec hogs are displacing Ontario hogs which have to travel to the United States for slaughter.

Ontario has only two big hog slaughter plants left after Quality Packers closed its plant in Toronto. Sofina in Burlington and Conestoga Packers in Breslau each slaughter about 45,000 hogs per week.

Conestoga has plans to expand, but that’s not happening immediately,

Ontario hog production exceeds slaughter capacity, even without the provincially-subsidized hogs from Quebec.

Olymel, the dominant hog packer in Quebec, closed a number of plants when it was losing up ro $100 million a year. When those plants were running at capacity, they bought hogs from Ontario.

If Quebec were a nation, there could be a countervailing duty on their hogs to offset the provincial subsidies and prices that don't cover the cost of production.