For immediate release:
Sept 23, 2004

New regs force farmers to pay commercial prices for homegrown beef

Barrett calls new restrictions, “overkill”

Moosonee - The Ontario government has gone too far in enacting new restrictions prohibiting licensed butchers from cutting, wrapping, and freezing beef from local farmers who kill their own cattle for family use, according to Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant MPP Toby Barrett.

The new regulations are part of changes to the Health Protection and Promotion Act that went into effect September 1st.

“Before September 1st, farmers could take beef, killed on their own farm, to licensed butchers to be cut up, wrapped and frozen for personal use – now farmers have to travel to their closest abbatoir to have it slaughtered there,” said Barrett. “In effect, this forces farmers to pay near-commercial prices for beef grown on their own farm!”

Barrett is joining with Leeds-Grenville MPP Bob Runciman in circulating a petition aimed at having the new restrictions rescinded.

Those interested can sign, and/or pick up copies of, the petition at MPP Barrett’s Simcoe constituency office.

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For more information contact: MPP Toby Barrett
519-428-0446 or 1-800-903-8629