I. INTRODUCTION

The Citizens’ Hearing on Hog Production
and the Environment was held in
Brandon, 29-31 October 1999, to examine
the environmental, economic, social, and
public health aspects surrounding indus-trial
scale hog production and processing,
using the experience of other jurisdictions
in North America. This hearing arose
from a dissatisfaction felt by some citizens
about the decision by the Government of
Manitoba to grant a license to Maple Leaf
Meats (MLM) for a large hog-processing
plant in Brandon (which started operation
in 1999) without convening Clean Envi-ronment
Commission hearings. This lack
of public hearings seemed to ignore the
concerns of those people who had doubts
about the advisability and sustainability
of large-scale hog operations in Manitoba.
Subsequently, some citizens of southwest
Manitoba, spearheaded by the Sierra Club
Prairie Chapter and the Westman Action
Coalition, decided to organize this Citi-zens’
Hearing in an attempt to compen-sate
for the lack of such an activity before
the licenses were granted. To ensure fair-ness
in the hearings, the organizers ar-ranged
for the hearings to be presided
over by an independent Chair (Yude
Henteleff) and a panel of six commission-ers
(Christine Common-Singh, Celia
Guilford, Roderick Macdonald, W.J.
Turnock, John Welsted, and Kay Wotton).
A wide range of groups and individu-als
were invited to make presentations,
including First Nations, academics, farm-ers,
farm organizations, industry, govern-ment
(municipal, provincial, federal),
non-governmental organizations, and an
open invitation was extended to con-cerned
citizens. There were 29 presenta-tions
(23 scheduled and 6 non-scheduled)
(Appendix A). After each presentation the
floor was open for questions, first from
the commissioners and then from the au-dience.
All the proceedings were recorded
and a transcript was made. In addition,
many of the presenters and other indi-viduals
and groups provided copies of
documents, and references to other perti-nent
information. Information on how to
see the “Transcript” and the “References
to Documents” is given in Appendix A.
The five commissioners who wrote this
report based it on the transcript, and the
documents and references, as well as their
notes from the Citizens’ Hearing. This
hearing, unlike more formal hearings con-ducted
by a governmental body, could not
compel testimony. Many of the invitedgroups/individuals responded, but not,
unfortunately, the City of Brandon or
MLM, so we did not get direct informa-tion
from the proponents. Other informa-tion
was examined by the commissioners
in preparing this report in an attempt to
provide a balanced view. Limited re-sources
prevented us from presenting a
complete analysis of the benefits and im-pacts
of the anticipated massive increase
in hog production in Manitoba. Such an
analysis is needed, and we hope that our
limited examination will provide the in-centive
for a full, formal, and public evalu-ation
of this development.
This report has been organized into
categories corresponding to major areas
of concern about the hog production and
processing industries. These categories
are not mutually exclusive, and each
should be considered as a lens through
which the writers view a subject area,
bringing a different focus and perspective
to each category.