OlyWest Opponents Create Powerful Alliance

NoWinniPIG Campaign aims at City Election

WINNIPEG, MB – The OlyOpp Alliance – a newly created coalition of major businesses, citizens and other organizations – today announced their plan to work together on a common goal to stop the hog slaughtering plant from locating in Winnipeg. The OlyOpp Alliance is comprised of members from the OlyOpp Business Group, Concerned Citizens Coalition, Animal Watch Manitoba, Winnipeg Humane Society, Manitoba Wildlands, Save Our Seine, the Liberal Party of Manitoba, the Green Party of Manitoba, and the Stop The Hogs Coalition. Several other groups are expected to join shortly.

“I can’t remember when such a force was gathered. It’s a unique group because it brings together people from the left and right of the political spectrum, management and labour, young and old, environmentalists and developers working together. While our members have many objectives to achieve within their own mandates, the OlyOpp Alliance will work together towards the sole objective of preventing OlyWest from locating in the St. Boniface Industrial Park of Winnipeg” said Ed Shinewald, newly appointed spokesperson for the OlyOpp Alliance.

The Alliance unveiled its “nowinnipig” campaign at a media event at Melet Plastics in the St. Boniface Industrial Park. Shinewald explained the Alliance will continue to support endorsed civic candidates and work to alter the make-up of city council in order to overturn the OlyWest resolution made in October 2005.

“It is time for our city and provincial governments to talk to citizens before they make a decision, and provide subsidies to a development that can hurt our community, our local economy and leave us with environmental effects that will also cost” said Gaile Whelan-Enns, a co-spokesperson for the Alliance and head of Manitoba Wildlands. “Oly West needs to be the last time our governments sign a secret back room deal and then try to tell us it is good for us !”

The nowinnipig campaign will also consist of an informative website –www.nowinnipig.net- and eye catching visual images that will be prominently displayed throughout the campaign. A variety of activities are planned to continue to inform the public of the impact the plant will have on the environment, local infrastructure, businesses, and the image of our city. A major rally is being planned for later on in the month close to the Civic Election Day.

The OlyOpp Alliance has also planned activities around the regulatory issues in preparation for the Clean Environment Commission hearings that may eventually take place. The group plans to extend the campaign, if necessary, throughout the civic election and into the next Provincial election when it is called.