Rhino's Ramblings - Let's Go Fishing

By Robert Thomas Opinion/Commentary

It came as yet another good news piece on the business sector - Donald's Fine Foods, owners of Thunder Creek Pork - is planning to convert the former XL Beef Plant into a culled sow operation.

On top of that the proposed facility would create 100 jobs plus additional spin-offs in the community. Another economic saviour for Moose Jaw has arisen but this time with actual money invested.

Not simply just money invested but a significant amount of money already spent on their Thunder Creek Pork operations. To expand in Moose Jaw is a good sign how much faith Donald's Fine Foods has in this community.

They have roots here.

But there is cavaet there seems in all of this it includes the six to eight week feasibility study.

“Why would they not have done their feasibility study before announcing their plans and buying the plant?” is a question I have been asked more than once about the announcement.

The answer for me is quite simple and that is in my opinion it has to deal with who is not on the news release. If you take a really good read of it it is the federal government.

In my own opinion Donald's Fine Foods is going to be fishing for sizeable federal and provincial dollars to upgrade and bring on-line a state of the art pork processing facility.

So why announce it without those federal and provincial funds?

In my opinion it is a news release to not only get the entire community of Moose Jaw involved but also to get the backing of the Western Canadian pork industry on side as well.

It is for me a pressure tactic trying to get financial support from all levels of government.

In the world of COVID - 19 having yet another meat processing facility on-line and operational is just good politics.

It helps avoid bottlenecks of only a couple processing facilities available. If one of them goes down due to COVID - 19 then there is enough capacity at other facilities to lessen the impact and prevent price spikes for consumers.

This in my opinion is a win-win situation for a federal Liberal government looking to make in-roads into what is the Conservative bastion of the Prairies.

Whether people believe me or not it is no joke to say longtime Liberal MP Ralph Goodale is gearing up for one more election run. All of the pieces for Ralph's return are right now being aligned. It would in no way surprise me to see Mr Goodale give it another shot once the Liberals decide to pull the pin and go for a majority government I’m guessing between 14 - 18 months from now.

Supporting a hog operation would give the Liberals more of a bridgehead into a Tory stronghold.

Throwing money around like Mr Trudeau has these past few weeks in my opinion makes them more likely to toss money Moose Jaw's way.

Provincially the budget has been blown out of the water with COVID - 19 so there really is little resistance to spending some more money if the province can get a major meat packing plant out of it. Just like the good old days of Intercontinental Packers in Saskatoon.

Could it be with Donald's Fine Foods buying and converting the former XL Beef Plant for pork they are in reality looking at more than a culled sows operation?

One needs to take a look at the size of the former XL Beef Plant and the numbers of culled sows they would have to process. It’s enormous. It leaves me thinking where are they ever going to get so many culled sows in Western Canada to make the plant feasible.

So really what is Donald's Fine Foods up to?

If you were to ask me and I was to speculate it’s either they are looking to do the kill for their Thunder Creek Pork operations or they are eyeing up a bigger prize and that is to slaughter more than culled sows but they also want to get into the actual processing of the pork.

Remember Thunder Creek Pork has its own bottle neck by being only able to process 1800 hogs daily.

Are we looking at a bacon plant in the future? Or other processed meats similar to what we saw with Intercontinental Packers and their Olympic brand?

,So how do I know there is fishing for federal and provincial dollars going on here?

It has to do with Thunder Creek Pork and the investment from the federal government Donald's Fine Foods managed to get - it was $1.7 million (repayable of course). The plant - which the City owned on back taxes - was basically given away with all owing property taxes written off.

The XL Beef Plant is almost an exact carbon copy of the past just on a larger scale.

At the present time there is a five year $3 billion Canadian Agriculture Partnership which has invested $121 million to support the Canadian Meat Council to expand foreign and domestic market opportunities.

So there may be funds there or elsewhere.

Now does this mean I am opposed to Donald's Fine Foods plans at the former XL Beef Plant? No not at all.

But that does not mean I am not going to ask the hard questions. That is in many ways the media's role.

In many ways it makes a lot of sense. Not just political but economic and business-wise as well.

All I can say here is I am hoping they manage to reel in a big one.

Good luck fishing.