Monday, October 8, 2012

XL Foods and the Peter Pocklington legacy

For quite a few years Peter Pocklington was the darling of the Canadian media. They loved his rags-to-riches bullshit story. He was big in the business section and also in the sports section. In fact, thanks to his ownership of the Edmonton Oilers he was considered such an icon in Canadian hockey circles that he was known as "Peter Puck."

Peter Puck has long been exposed as a fraud and a charlatan, but there is still one bit of his putrid legacy making waves today. Peter Pocklington revolutionized meat processing in Canada. The tainted beef recall at XL owes everything to Peter Puck.

You see, it was Peter Pocklington who made meat processing a race-to-the-bottom industry in Canada. His Gainers lock-out and union busting destroyed the old model of meat processing.

The old model had career employees staking their livelihoods on the quality of the product they put out every day.

The new model has recent immigrants or temporary foreign workers busting their asses to meet meat quotas every minute of the day. They have no long term stake in the steak.

Twenty thousand gringos get sick from e-coli? Oh well, guess I'm going home early... easy come easy go!

And it would never have happened without Peter Puck.

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