Fifty-one years later, Kerry Arksey gave away the last of his livelihood – one defiant slab of frozen hamburger at a time.
It was his last act as a farmer – a life that gave him three good decades followed by seven disastrous years – as well as one of the strangest protests ever to hit the provincial capital. His aim was to draw attention to Canadian cattle farmers, whose plight has driven him out of the industry.
“Hello, my name is Kerry Arksey and I'm a recovering farmer,” he joked with the parade of Winnipeggers who approached his red Toyota Tacoma, strategically parked across from the neo-classical columns marking the Legislature's entrance.
Some took a single pound of hamburger, others demanded a whole lot more.
“That one guy took a whole box and said he'd send me a cheque, but I'm not so sure.”
They all walked with a little bit of Mr. Arksey's prized Simmentals, pure-bred cattle that once demanded upward of $1700 a head. A few weeks ago, he auctioned off most of his herd for just over $800 an animal.
In May, 2003, a single cow carcass from Alberta tested positive for the brain-wasting disease known as Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.
The lives of Canadian beef producers have never been the same.
“We were basically debt-free until BSE hit,” Mr. Arksey said, hunkering inside his truck, his hands cold from the -30 wind chill outside. “The government said it was fine to grind up cows and feed them to other cows.”
Foreign markets quickly slammed their doors to Canadian beef. Most have been reopened, but with restrictions so onerous that Canada exports just three-quarters of the beef it did in 2002, according to Canadian Beef Export Federation.
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