The province on Thursday announced assistance of $627,946 for 2019-20 for a feasibility study making a business case to offer the Universite de Montreal’s veterinary medicine program through the Universite du Quebec at Rimouski.

The Universite de Montreal currently has the province’s only college of veterinary medicine, with annual capacity for 96 students at its St-Hyacinthe campus as of 2016.

The two universities propose to set up a “decentralized” program that would allow for the training of another 25 students per year, the province said Thursday.

The training would take place over five years, three of which would be at the Universite du Quebec’s Rimouski campus, followed by a year at the Universite de Montreal ‘s St-Hyacinthe campus and a year of clinical internship.

Those internships would be served partly in St-Hyacinthe and partly at veterinary clinics in “the regions,” referring to underserved rural areas. At least half the internships are expected be with veterinary doctors in regions identified by the province as most in need, including the Lower St-Lawrence, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Abitibi-Temiscamingue, Gaspe-Magdalen-Islands, Outaouais and North Shore.

The feasibility study would look at the start-up and operating costs for such a program, including real estate, technology and other capital costs and ongoing human and material resources.

Daniel Jutras, rector of the Universite de Montreal, said the aim of the project is not only to train nearly 25 per cent more veterinarians in Quebec per year, but to do so on a campus serving a large rural area in need of successions among vets.

The province has a notable shortage of veterinary doctors in its regions, particularly in the agrifood sector, the government said in its release.

If the project goes ahead, “I’m convinced that future veterinarians will be better able to respond to the needs of the regions of Quebec and to support (the regions’) development, notably in the agrifood sector,” Danielle McCann, the province’s minister for higher education, said in the same release.

Labour shortages affect all sectors in the regions, Agriculture Minister Andre Lamontagne said in the same release, but veterinary medicine and the agrifood sector are particularly affected.

A 2018 study by the provincial ag ministry (MAPAQ) notes nearly 20 per cent of veterinarians in general practice involving large animals have over 30 years of practice, and over a third will be of retirement age in 2027. The resulting shortage of vets would be felt particularly outside the province’s major cities, MAPAQ found.

The feasibility study is a step to help deal with the shortage of veterinarians in all regions of the province, no matter how they specialize, Lamontagne said.

Decentralizing the veterinary medicine program to Rimouski would offer a chance for that campus to optimize its available spaces and help renew the veterinarian pool in the province, particularly in the east, said Marie-Eve Proulx, the province’s minister for regional economic development.

It’s hoped, she said, that many of those vets would choose to stay and set themselves up in the regions once their studies are done.

Graduates of the program would be free to practice veterinary medicine where they wish, Jutras added, but the two universities are betting that at the end of their studies, the graduates will have developed an attachment to practicing outside major centres.

Dr. Christine Theoret, dean of the Universite de Montreal’s faculty of veterinary medicine, in a separate statement cited a Canadian Veterinary Medical Association study which found a shortage of veterinarians in Canada generally, but that Quebec was the most affected province.

Renewing the corps of veterinarians, she said, is therefore an issue throughout the profession, particularly for large-animal and livestock vets but also for those working with companion animals.

The completed feasibility study, she said, is expected to be submitted to the province this fall. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Quebec-based Agropur, North America’s biggest dairy co-operative, announced Friday it will start winding down operations at its Saint-Damase cheese plant in January ahead of the April 2019 closure.

The St-Damase plant’s soft cheese manufacturing will be set up at Agropur’s St-Hyacinthe plant, while its cheese conversion will be transferred to the co-op’s plant at Beauceville.

Agropur had bought what was then known as Fromagerie Damafro and its sister cheesemaker, Fromagerie Clement, in 2013 for an undisclosed sum. The plants were previously owned and operated by the Bonnet family of cheesemakers, who came to Quebec from the Brie region of France.

Agropur on Friday said “major investments were needed” at the St-Damase plant, just south of St-Hyacinthe in Quebec’s Monteregie.

“In view of the inability to reach a long-term agreement with the plant’s employees and the need to honour commitments to customers, Agropur had no choice but to reorganize its investments,” the co-operative said in a release, adding it has to take the “necessary measures to remain a major player in an increasingly competitive market.”

The plant’s 110 affected employees “will be able to take advantage of available programs, including employment opportunities at other Agropur sites.”

The employees are represented by Local 1991-P of the Travailleurs et Travailleuses unis de l’alimentation et du commerce (TUAC), the Quebec affiliate of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

The union said Friday it had known a plant closure was at least theoretically possible since before talks began on a new contract.

However, TUAC officials said, the union and company had already agreed to meet for conciliation talks on Oct. 1, following the filing of the union’s last offer in June.

Up until now, TUAC said, few sticking points remained to be negotiated and the union’s negotiating committee had been optimistic that the two sides could reach a deal.

TUAC 1991-P president Mario Maisonneuve said Friday there’s “no doubt” Agropur favoured closing the St-Damase plant before bargaining had even begun. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Provincial venture capital firm Investissement Quebec and labour-sponsored Fonds de solidarite FTQ and Fondaction announced Tuesday they would each put up $8 million, plus an unspecified amount from investors led by Montreal private equity firm Champlain Financial, to buy the Baxters Canada business, based in St-Hyacinthe, Que.

Baxters Canada makes the Baxters brand of soups and sauces and various private-label products for grocery chains and businesses. It also makes Aylmer and Primo soups in Canada, using those brands under license from U.S. processor ConAgra Brands and Toronto-based Primo Foods respectively.

The business’ roots in Quebec date back to 1976, when it began as SoupExperts, making ready-to-eat vacuum-packed foods for Canada’s armed forces.

Baxters — based in the Highlands about 75 km northeast of Inverness since 1868, and in the soup business since 1929 — bought the St-Hyacinthe operation in 2004.

The Scottish company said at the time it planned to use the St-Hyacinthe facilities as its launch pad to expand in the Canadian branded soup market.

The Canadian business, under the name Baxters Canada, bought the combined Aylmer and Primo soup businesses from CanGro Foods in 2007 and later consolidated all its Canadian processing at St-Hyacinthe.

The St-Hyacinthe plant, on property Baxters sold last September and has since leased back, today covers about 90,000 square feet and employs nearly 200 people.

According to Baxters’ annual report for the year ending April 1, 2017, the plant produced over 84 million cans of food that year for revenues of $61.2 million.

“With this acquisition, the Fonds can help fuel the growth of agri-food exports and position a Quebec company in a mature sector that is undergoing consolidation in Canada,” Alain Denis, senior vice-president with Fonds de solidarite FTQ, said in a release.

Baxters Canada, he noted, “is poised to penetrate the U.S. and Mexican markets as well as develop new products.”

Baxters Canada CEO Daniel Cousineau, also noting the company’s “ambitious growth plan that includes acquisitions and geographic diversification,” said the Quebec funds “share our vision and have the expertise and financial wherewithal to allow us to achieve our objectives.” — AGCanada.com Network

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Olymel said Friday it will halt ham deboning at its St-Hyacinthe plant in September 2017, eliminating 340 positions.

Ham deboning work, until now the St-Hyacinthe plant’s designated specialty, will instead be done at plants with both slaughtering and butchering operations, Olymel said.

That move, the company said, will “improv(e) operational efficiency and reducing costs considerably, in terms of both fixed costs and shipping.”

Olymel’s hog slaughter and butchering plants — at St-Esprit, Yamachiche and Vallee-Jonction — are “now geographically closer to the further-processing plants they supply with raw materials,” the company said.

The St-Hyacinthe plant will remain open, but with about 70 staff handling frozen product storage operations and a rendering line for lard production.

Olymel said Friday it’s also “studying various options to find a new vocation for the plant, which would enable it to fulfill other needs for the company.”

Olymel in June announced expansion work at its St-Esprit hog plant, which it said at the time would begin to handle greater output of “value-added” products and chilled pork.

The company in June also announced a Quebec City-area sausage plant at St-Henri-de-Levis would be repurposed for ham processing, after Olymel bought Trois-Rivieres sausage maker La Fernandiere and said it would move its sausage lines to that company’s plant.

The cut at St-Hyacinthe was “a difficult decision, but a necessary one if we are to achieve the conditions of efficiency and profitability that will enable us to maintain the bulk of other jobs across all our operations, and even create new ones,” Olymel CEO Rejean Nadeau said Friday in a release.

The job cuts, he said, were “deemed necessary after a thorough analysis of processing costs with a view to making all our operations more efficient.”

Olymel’s St-Hyacinthe plant saw a work stoppage in 2009, with unionized workers reportedly protesting a proposed wage freeze following a major pay cut in 2005, when the plant was said to be under threat of closure.

“I have requested that everything be done to facilitate the transition for employees assigned to another position, or their relocation to another Olymel facility,” Nadeau said Friday.

A plan has been set up and a relocation committee formed to move affected employees to other Olymel plants within a 70-km radius of St-Hyacinthe, the company said.

Apart from its pork slaughter and butchering plants, Olymel noted it operates other Quebec food processing plants at Drummondville, Ste-Rosalie, St-Damase and St-Jean-Baptiste, and “other types” of operations at St-Bruno, Boucherville and St-Valerien.

La Coop federee said earlier this year it plans to sell an ownership stake of up to 49 per cent in Olymel, to fund the co-operative’s plans for further expansions in pork processing and ag retail in Western Canada. — AGCanada.com Network

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