SOS!

Dear editor:
Wow! The public meeting on Feb. 18 in regards to the proposed abattoir in Emo was sold out. A big thank you to all who made the effort to come out and to get informed about a possible abattoir project in our town.
Thank you, also, to all of you who had the courage to do the mic. I was too scared, so I want to make up for it and write you a kind of a personal letter (is this okay?)
Dear fellow citizens of the town of Emo:
I am a bit discouraged about some misunderstanding and some fear-driven gossip (even though some gossip contains some aspects of truth) travelling through our heads in town.
If we, in Emo, discourage a local abattoir, I fear consequences will hit us in a different way. No local abattoir means no local controlled and processed meat. Our meat is, and has to continually come, from wherever—processed in big, mega monster slaughterhouses over which we don’t have any control and where food is much more seen as a commodity.
What happens if we see oil prices double or triple. We can’t afford to buy meat and groceries anymore and we might have to go on a diet.
There is a movement in this country, and in this district, which is called “Local Food for Local People.” We need a local abattoir to serve our local area with locally-produced meat—and the ideal place to make this happen is Emo.
If Emo would close its door to an abattoir. I seriously fear there might never be an abattoir at all and we all would carry a share of guilt and responsibility in closing our doors.
If the abattoir would have to be built in the country, it will not work because the cost of the lagoons and of a treated water system will increase the capital cost horrendously.
A much bigger abattoir would have to be built to justify the increased capital cost, which means we would need a lot more animals to process, which we don’t have and which we don’t want.
Would we consider and be willing, as Emo residents, to share our infrastructure for others and our own benefit for a desperately-needed abattoir?
Who paid for our local Emo lagoons and water treatment plant? Was it not mostly paid by grants supplied provincially and federally (that means by ordinary taxpayers, not only by us).
What about all the concerns we have? Yes, they need to be addressed, but let’s sort out the real concerns from the fear-driven ones. We decided to live with other things we don’t like, such as the smell in Fort Frances, or the increased traffic going through Emo since the establishment of the Barwick mill.
What about the train speeding and blasting through our town day and night, year after year, putting us on a constant sleeping diet?
By the way, seriously, if I would have the choice, I would rather move close to a local abattoir than to remain as a good neighbour with CN.
SOS Emo! Please let us open our doors to a local, community-based abattoir and share our infrastructure with the rest of our community for the betterment of all of us—before it is too late.
Sincerely,
Jurgen Schmutz,
Emo, Ont.