The London, ON cricket factory owned by the Aspire Food Group went back to admitting it's producing human food, according to the latest news from its apparent publicity agent, the CBC..I first wrote about the cricket factory in July when Aspire was clearly positioning itself to raise crickets for human consumption with the assistance of at least two Canadian government subsidies and an international prize..A strong backlash arose from Canadian consumers who didn’t want to eat crickets, so Aspire re-branded itself (or should I say “began to identify?") as a pet food manufacturer. Its promoter, the CBC, slanted the story as though Aspire had always intended to focus primarily on producing pet food, and had been the victim of a “conspiracy theory” to promote some other belief. My second article, pointing out the inconsistencies in the CBC’s story, was here in the Western Standard..On Monday of this week, I awoke to the news that — whoop-de-doo! — the cricket factory had finally succeeded in making its first sale of crickets for use as human food to a company in Asia. According to the article on the Candian [sic] Trends website, the crickets will be frozen at Aspire’s London factory, then ground into powder, then shipped to South Korea to be added to human foods..The CBC finally got around to mentioning the government subsidies: “The federal government has said it will invest $8.5 million into Aspire's London facility.”.Excuse me — “will invest”?.Why is there no mention of the $16.8 million taxpayers have already invested through NGEN or the $10 million through STDC (Sustainable Development Technology Canada)?.This has always been a sore spot with me. It irritated me as a taxpayer that I am compelled to subsidize cricket production when, as a consumer, I have no intention of ever eating crickets. Then it irritated me I was forced to subsidize cricket production to feed dogs when there is already an abundance of dog food on store shelves. Now it irritates me that I’m being forced to subsidize an operation that will send “food” off to consumers in Korea..The London Free Press quoted Sylvain Charlebois, a professor of food production at Dalhousie University, as saying, “This is great and not unexpected.”.Charlebois recently authored a book entitled “La Révolution des Protéines” which discusses insects, among other things, as foods. In a phone call with me, he said he was not necessarily opposed to government subsidizing alternative food production. However, he was also very clear: “As soon as you accept money from taxpayers, you need to show some accountability and complete transparency… If it’s to feed people other than in Canada, I don’t think we should provide support.”.Charlebois then gave me the example of the Canada Royal Milk (CRM) company in Kingston, ON, which produces baby formula in Canada, but ships it to China. According to True North, CRM received $225 million from Canadian taxpayers, but all of its baby formula was apparently being sent to China, even as Canadians faced rising prices and shortages here..Five of the eight managers shown on CRM’s website look as if they could be Chinese and workers at the plant have complained (to the CBC, of all people) the safety standards in the plant were very low, resembling Chinese standards much more than Canadian standards..I emailed Canada Royal Milk to ask for an interview with them regarding the location of their market and their source of funding, but they flatly declined, saying: “Thank-you for your e-mail. Canada Royal Milk will not provide an interview.”.The Aspire Group also declined to answer my e-mailed questions about funding, saying: “There is no one available to respond to your questions.”.With food prices skyrocketing in Canada and many consumers having a hard time making ends meet, why are we being taxed to feed people in other countries? The accountability and transparency recommended by Professor Charlebois is clearly lacking..We need to investigate not only the companies who received our tax dollars, but the reasoning and motives of the Canadian bureaucrats who handed them out so freely.
