Paper submitted to the Manitoba Clean Environment Commission with respect to its Investigation into Hog Production in Manitoba.

with respect to its investigation into hog production in Manitoba. My thesis, based on more than five years of research into the growth of Manitoba’s intensive livestock industry, is that it is no longer sustainable. Manitoba’s emergence as a pork powerhouse has polarized many of our rural communities around social and environmental issues, with no obvious solutions in sight. I am concerned that this investigation of the hog industry, similar to previous investigations of the same industry, will stress harm reduction and mitigation of negative effects, rather than question the benefits of tolerating intensive hog production on such an enormous scale. It is the latter question that this Commission, and Manitoba’s citizens, should address. There is a history of public inquiries examining the environmental impact of Manitoba’s hog industry. As early as 1979, the Manitoba Clean Environment Commission, after conducting hearings at a number of sites in the province, issued a report on intensive livestock operations (ILO’s).i At that time, odour problems were the main driver of public debate. In 1994, the Manitoba Pork Study Committee investigated the industry, but the report largely subordinated environmental problems to economic development priorities.ii By the twenty-first century, however, a tectonic shift had occurred in public perceptions of the ecological effects of ILO’s. The Walkerton tragedy had made us forcefully aware that water contamination, and human health concerns generally, trumped odour as an overriding issue. There was a growing focus on the fact that livestock production contributes heavily to land and water degradation, greenhouse gas emissions, and, ultimately, global warming.iii Words like “sustainability ” and “sustainable development ” had become established in the official lexicon, and were liberally sprinkled in

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