(photo: Frances Campbell, Chronicle-Herald)
In the bigger picture, a ruling that Cameron Fraser, operator of a small, family-owned abattoir in Nova Scotia, must stop butchering the turkeys his friends and neighbours bring to his shop must seem like small potatoes.
Fraser has been a butcher most of his life and his shop has filled a need in the farming community of Millbrook for over three decades. He processes beef, pork, chicken, and until this recent ruling, turkey. Compact and clean, his shop is by most standards a place where someone would have no second thoughts about bringing their animals.
Unless you happen to be from the Turkey Farmers of Nova Scotia, a provincial regulatory board. In that case, second thoughts seem to apply. According to the representative who visited his shop, Fraser must have a separate building for turkeys and that red meat and poultry cannot be processed in the same building. According to the rep, Fraser is subject to a $5000 fine if he killed one more turkey.
But what seems like a simple case of a small business owner running afoul (sorry) of provincial regulations is showing signs of becoming something far more troubling.
More after the fold...
The situation Gordon Fraser is facing has drawn the attention of local and regional media, with articles in the Chronicle-Herald newspaper on September 16th and on CBC Nova Scotia News on September 17th and again on September 24th.
And with that media attention, some interesting information has come to light. According to author and naturalist Cliff Seruntine, the roots of Fraser's situation lie in the early spring of 2014:
As usual, thousands of small farmers all around the province of Nova Scotia make arrangements to buy their turkey poulets from local sellers such as feed and seed co-ops. So far, all seems normal.
Mid to Late Spring: Those would-be small farmers arrive to purchase their poulets and discover that the NS Turkey Board is requiring them to sign a document affirming they will not sell any turkeys out-of-gate, even if legally butchered by a local certified abattoir. I have put out several requests for anyone to point me to the regulations stating the NS Turkey Board can require anyone to sign to buy turkeys. Nor has anyone been able to show me legislation stating they can prohibit farmers from the age-old tradition of selling livestock out-of-gate. (If you know of such legislation, please point it out.) At the same time, all those feed and seed stores are informed they can be sued if they do not enforce the signing of these wavers. And for the first time ever, buyers of day old chickens for small farms are required to provide their names and addresses (I know, I was one of them.)
September: A small Pictou County family-run abattoir run by Gordon Fraser receives an anonymous complaint. The complaint was ostensibly by a customer who didn’t like that he was butchering turkeys without a turkey board inspector on premises and entirely separate butchering facilities to butcher turkeys. At roughly the same time, those few small local abattoirs remaining around the province received similar instructions to cease butchering turkeys.
In his detailed article, Seruntine speculates on the genesis and the goals of these actions, and in particular the role of Keith Colwell, Nova Scotia's Minister of Agriculture.
Keith Colwell, MLA Eastern Shore
Serpentine's problems with Colwell are detailed extensively by him in several articles, and worth reading over, considering the extent that small farming is a beleaguered profession in Nova Scotia and elsewhere.
But this problem is far greater than one politician and one industry. It reaches into all areas of life, in Canada and around the world. The toxic combination of corporate money and influence and public representation is rapidly becoming the number one issue that must be confronted by every voter in every open society.