Agriculture committee  I have letters back from the minister. I've sent many letters to her, and my customers.

Agriculture committee  That's right, and unfortunately they've sunk a pile of money into that place. They have had some grants from the government. When the BSE came by, they gave them $1 million or $1.5 million so that they would slaughter cows, because nobody wanted to touch cows anymore because of B

Agriculture committee  I've never had to do paperwork. These are new tasks they are forcing me to do. I've never had to do paperwork before.

Agriculture committee  It was the local health board. That would be the municipality or the county.

Agriculture committee  I think that is the corporations turning the screws. We have that same problem in the bottom end of Grey County with West Grey Premium Beef, a brand new company that just opened up maybe five years ago.

Agriculture committee  For me, there was no provincial. I'd never heard of them before.

Agriculture committee  I've never had a licence, never heard of provincial—

Agriculture committee  Never certified, nothing. I was municipal. Mine was the store where you went to buy your steaks.

Agriculture committee  It makes sense to me.

Agriculture committee  Right now there are three systems, and it seems to have worked fine for years and years and years. If you ship outside your province, you are federally inspected under the restrictions of the United States, basically. If you do it within your province, it's done provincially. And

Agriculture committee  I'm glad you brought up the part about the health inspectors. The Friday before I closed on Saturday, my local health inspector came into the store. I looked at him and laughed. I said, “I guess I have a big target on me.” He asked why. I said, “Well, they're shutting me down.”

Agriculture committee  Yes, that's the understanding I get from a lot of the people in my industry. I mean, who made up these rules? It was the University of Guelph, the corporations, and the independent federation of meat packers. None of the people in my situation belong to any of those organizations

Agriculture committee  I never saw one inspector, and they closed me down.

Agriculture committee  I'll start with coming to the house with the meat. In Ontario, for as long as I've been a butcher, that's always been against the law. You cannot come away from your premises unless you have a store on wheels. In other words, you have to be fully equipped with the four sinks and

Agriculture committee  This may take just a few seconds. This is from an abattoir owner in our county, Steve Lantz. He couldn't make it today, but he was supposed to come with me. There's a letter, and I won't read it because it will take too long, but I'll cut it down. In 1995-96 his abattoir was a