Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has poked fun at the Prime Minister of Canada’s failing cricket factory that he only recently gave millions of dollars to in an attempt to encourage Canadians to eat bugs.
In 2022, the Trudeau Liberals poured $9 million into building the largest cricket-processing plant in the world, operating out of London, Ontario.
Now, the receivers of the generous grant, Aspire Food Group Ltd., have announced they’re laying off two-thirds of their staff and reducing their production.
“Liberals spend $9 million of your money on an edible bug factory. Now we get ‘crickets’ from them about where the money went,” Poilievre posted on X.
Previous reports from 2022 indicate that Agriculture Canada gave $8.5 million to the insect protein producers, but documents uncovered in December of last year revealed that the plan was in action as early as June 2020.
At the time, the feds committed $10 million from Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada (ISED) to get the cricket plant designed, built, and operational.
As per documents released through an order paper question from an opposition MP, “(the) farming of insects, rather than animals, for protein uses less feed, water, and land and produces higher quality protein compared to plants.”
The ministry also indicated that the facility is easily scalable and can “automate large-scale production of cricket protein.”
The Liberals’ commitment came just months before the EU approved insects for human consumption for the first time. Legacy media outlets subsequently ran buck wild with the idea with headlines such as:
“How Humans Eating Insects Could Help Save the Planet,” published by Time in February 2021.
“Insect protein has great potential to reduce the carbon footprint of European consumers,” published by ScienceDaily in September 2021.
“To Fight Global Warming, Eat Bugs,” published by Science.
“Why eating insects to combat climate change is inevitable,” published by the South China Morning Post in June 2021.
“How eating insects could help climate change,” published by the BBC way back in 2015.
“If we want to save the planet, the future of food is insects,” published by The Guardian in May 2021.
