The Rural Voice, 2006-02, Page 49PERTH Pik
County Pork Producers NEWSLETTER
Russ Danbrook, President
519-356-2385
The Rural Voice is provided to Perth
County Pork Producers by the PCPPA.
Perth Pork Producers hear minister of agriculture
Any opinions expressed herein may
not necessarily reflect the views of
the Perth County Pork Producers'
Association.
The Perth County Pork Producers
held an annual banquet and meeting
on January 19 at the Mitchell Golf
and Country Club. Once again the
caterers at the Mitchell Golf and
Country Club did an outstanding job
preparing a great roast beef dinner; I
will admit a conflict of interest since
one of my relatives was part of the
crew but what are relatives for. I
would carry on but I am sure some of
you will be thinking that something is
wrong with the previous statement;
you're right it was pork on the menu
and not roast beef, a little humor to
see if you're paying attention.
After dinner our Federal
representative MP Gary
Schellenberger spoke followed by
MPP John Wilkinson who introduced
our guest speaker. We had the
privilege of having the Honourable
Leona Dombrowsky, Minister of
Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
as our guest speaker. Ms
Dombrowsky touched on items such
as concerns with CAIS, the "Unified
Voice" campaign, national
traceability and talks that occurred at
the WTO. At the completion of her
talk our outgoing President Russ
Danbrook joked with her about the
jinx that our guest speakers have had
over the last two years. Last year's
speaker played for the CFL Toronto
Argos, they did not repeat their Grey
Cup win and two year's ago our
speaker lost his position in cabinet. If
this jinx were true, it was probably a
good thing that Leona Dombrowsky
was not up for election on January
23.
PERTH COUNTY PORK
PRODUCERS'
PORK PRODUCTS
• Smoked Pork Chops
• Fresh Pork Chops • Stuffed Loin Chops
• Smoked Sausage • Smoked Cheddar Sausage
• Bacon Burgers • Teriyaki Pork Steaks
• Vittorio's BBQ Sauce
AVAILABLE FROM:
Steve Hulshof (Kinkora) 348-8167
Walter Bosch (Monkton) 356-9000
Ted Keller (Mitchell) 348-9836
Russ Danbrook then took his turn
to review his two years as our
President covering our involvement
at the IPM with the Perth County
Food Court, a study of veterinary
drugs costs in Canada with the U.S.
and how we have enjoyed a good
working relationship with our MP
and MPP.
Marty Ropp was called forward to
accept on behalf of the St. Willibrord
Community Credit Union the Perth
County Pork Producers Promoter of
the Year Award. Bert and Sylvia
Groenestege were called forward to
accept an achievement award for
their years of dedicated service to our
organization and then Clare and
Catherine Schlegel were called upon
to accept our Producer of the Year
award.
That in a nutshell was our annual
meeting and I am certainly not going
to try and cramp all the information
that Larry Skinner and Clare Schlegel
presented to us in this article but I
believe that a comment that Russ
Danbrook made is worth a few
words. He had commented that in the
past few years he has noticed a
growing level of pessimism in our
organization. How could one not
find themselves being at least a little
negative? It seems that issues are
always being added but none being
removed: low hog prices, disease,
skyrocketing Canadian dollar,
increasing energy costs, World Trade
Talks, corn countervail — wow those
are just a few items that have been
touched on in the last few articles. I
hate to leave what has been generally
a good year on a less then positive
note so I am going to steal a note
from an article Phil Anwender
submitted "Hang on for the wild ride
ahead"
Wishing the Best in 2006
— Bert J. Vorstenbosch (Jr)
FEBRUARY 2006 45