Carman, MB — Candice Bergen, Member of Parliament for Portage-Lisgar, attending a groundbreaking ceremony for Plains Processors over the weekend. The groundbreaking will start the building process for a state-of-the-art meat processing facility.

“Plains Processors is an amazing opportunity for our hard-working producers right here in Manitoba.” said MP Bergen. “With a customer in their home province, producers will reduce their transportation costs and keep more of their hard-earned money where it belongs -- in their pockets.”

The Manitoba beef industry already brings over four hundred million dollars ($421M) to the farm gate, plus close to a hundred million dollars ($96M) in exports. The Canadian beef industry estimates that this restored market access could mean more than $30 million for Canadian producers by 2015.

The Government has supported a competitive Canadian beef industry through several measures, reopening markets for our beef in key markets like China and South Korea; investing in the beef research cluster; and winning the Country-of-Origin-Labeling ruling at the WTO.

“I am proud of the entrepreneurial spirit demonstrated by Calvin Vaags and his team for getting this project off the ground,” added Bergen. “These initiatives are what continue to grow Portage-Lisgar and ridings across Manitoba.”