A letter to the Ontario Permier, fom a concerned citizen.

Dear Premier Eves,

As you are aware, hog factory related problems persist, are growing throughout Ontario, and your government has not acted to protect, watersheds, people or rural communities.

In your letter to me dated May 30 2002, you indicated Helen Johns would respond to me on behalf of your government. This has not happened and the contaminated well that lead to my initial correspondence with you is still showing e-coli contamination. This contamination is from a well that did not show contamination until a hog factory was built on the neighboring property.

In another part of Ontario, after an eight-year battle with a hog factory owner, the Lucas family won its battle, when the Normal Farm Practices Board ruled the adjacent hog factory must install stacks to dissipate the odour. Although the Lucas family property tax was reassessed and reduced as a result of the offensive hog odour, the stacks have still not been built fourteen months after the ruling.

Is it your government's expectation that every realtor in the province must now notify prospective property buyers that the value of their property might drop if they are downwind of a hog factory?

The impact of the proposed Nutrient Management Regulations will destroy rural Ontario and the diversified economic base, which thrives throughout rural Ontario.

We, in rural Ontario need more than verbal assurances from your government that when local municipalities determine that hog factories will be a detriment to the social, economic, or physical health of the community, you will not persecute them for standing up for their constituents.

Your government must not extend the same rights of family farmers and small farm corporations to hog factories. Hog factories, similar to many small businesses before them, have evolved into complex industrial operations. They must be regulated and taxed as such. Why should a hog factory that puts food into our mouths, and produces millions of liters of acidic waste and pathogens, be any less regulated than other factories?

Thousands of concerned citizens, family farmers, and rural businesses throughout Ontario will appreciate your assistance in our battle to preserve, protect and develop sustainable strategies for a healthy and diversified rural Ontario.

Yours truly,

Dan Gieruszak
One of Many,
Concerned Citizens in Rural Ontario
R.R. # 1,
Cargill, ON
NO2 IJ7