Announcements offer Moose Jaw hope for future employment

Things are looking up for Moose Jaw with three recent announcements on the potential for a hog processing plant, the $12 million upgrade of the local Sask. Polytechnic campus, and SaskPower’s continued commitment to the $700 million natural gas cogeneration plant. With the pandemic and the pandemic-induced recession, some observers feared SaskPower would shelve plans for the plant, but the plant is needed for Saskatchewan to meet its greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. The two-year construction project at the Saskatchewan Polytechnic Campus in Moose Jaw will renovate parts of the campus to increase use.

Affected departments include construction, electrical, welding, automotive and civil water.

This investment, part of $17.5 million announced by the province for four Polytechnic properties, will restore focus on the Moose Jaw campus.

Job and program losses at the local campus had some wondering about its long term future. That future is still quite dependent on the need for trade apprentices in the province as some of the other programs have been shifted to other campus locations.

Moose Jaw needs to be more protective and proactive of this education jewel.

The announcement that Donald’s Fine Foods, the owner of Thunder Creek Pork, is doing a feasibility study on re-purposing the closed XL Beef plant to a sow processing plant is much welcomed.

We should have the study results by late summer.

The company says a plant specialized in killing and processing sows would end concerns about open borders. Currently, 80 per cent of sows are shipped to the United States for slaughter. About 200,000 culled sows are available annually. The large animals need different sized equipment than the average market hog.

That is an interesting turn. A few years after the current Thunder Creek plant, then called Moose Jaw Pork, started killing six head a day, the owner switched to killing sows and grew successfully for years.

Years later, new owners shifted that production to market hogs but now see sows as viable.

Donald’s Fine Foods employs 800 people in four plants, including 250 in Moose Jaw. The new plant would employ 100 workers once retrofitted.

When the family-owned Donald’s acquired Thunder Creek Pork 10 years ago, the goal was processing pork for the Japanese market which took 31 per cent of Canada’s pork exports.

The local plant employed 130 workers with plans to kill 1,200 hogs a day, and has grown to 250 workers. During the last 10 years Donald’s has developed markets in 25 countries from North America, South America, Asia, and Australia.

Founded in 1993 the B.C.-based company expanded in 1997, 2005 and 2010, building the Sakura hog farm in 2012.

The potential expansion in Moose Jaw is no doubt related to the need for pork processing to meet global demand until China recovers from the loss of almost half its 600 million pigs from swine flu.

These three announcements are so welcome after disappointments when the city lost the $50 million pea plant and the $7.5 million land sale for an industrial park.

Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net