Ag department officials in Nova Scotia who have studied the latest feasibility report on the Atlantic Beef Products packing plant in P.E.I. are advising their government not to put up cash to sustain the plant, CBC News reported today.
CBC quoted Nova Scotia Agriculture Minister Brooke Taylor as saying Thursday that while the plant is the only federally-inspected slaughter capacity in Atlantic Canada, “we can’t ask the taxpayers to subsidize a plant that has no future…we believe it can be sustainable, but it’s not ‘go forward’ at this point.”
The Prince Edward Island government, a shareholder in the cattlemen’s co-op facility at Borden, west of Charlottetown, has gone on record that it won’t put any more money into the plant unless the other Atlantic provinces are willing to provide funding. P.E.I.’s last cash infusion of $1.5 million is expected to run out at the end of this month.
