Well, the farmers around here (Manitoba) bought/bred the pigs based on contracts they had signed with US importers. Because of the COOL legislation coming into effect this fall, those contracts were voided by nervous importers who are afraid of being committed to pigs that they won't be able to sell in the US.

Tack on the rising Canadian loonie and incredibly high feed costs, there are a lot of farmers who risk losing everything this season.

I'm not a huge fan of hog farming, even though it's one of our province's main agri-businesses. But to say that the hogs are being slaughtered for no reason is pretty misleading. It's not as if the government said, "Hey, we'll pay you to kill pigs!" The slaughter was already underway by the time the gov't decided to kick in cash for the farmers.