Chances are that if you threw some sausage onto your grill this summer and got some fat splattered on you because of it, you gave a little yelp or wince and just continued cooking. But Stephen Harper doesn’t think that you should have to go through this to enjoy a nice dinner and so, he’s given a whole slew of taxpayer money to stop the unfortunate incident from happening.
It was Cardinal Meat Specialists Ltd. in Brampton, Ontario that were given a cheque by the Canadian government for $826,000. Why? So that they could create a non-bursting sausage that supposedly would do more than just protect Canadians from fat burns.
The government issued a statement to the public when they handed the cheque over to Cardinal meats, claiming that there are actual economic reasons for the decision.
“The investment will help the company purchase a new manufacturing equipment that will produce a higher quality sausage that is more resistant to splitting or bursting while cooking,” said that statement. It continues on to say that the initiative also helps promote “long-term prosperity,” and that it promotes competitiveness in the Canadian market. But does it? (To read the entire press release you can find it here.)
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation doesn’t think so. They say that by giving such a cheque to a company, they’re effectively eliminating competition by giving someone an obvious leg up. National director Gregory Thomas released their own statement saying,
“They say they’re for free trade and a free market, then they hand over a cheque for nearly a million taxpayer dollars to a sausage maker so he can go out and gut his competition.”
Once the news went public, the Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz issued an email stating that the meat processing plant would be required to pay the money back in full.
What do you think? Should the government have given a Canadian company money to research and develop their products so that they could keep us safer from exploding sausages? And the biggest question that we have is: are they doing the same kind of research on hot dogs? Because those can split too, and it’s not nearly as nice when placed in the bun.
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