Rural Affairs Minister Leona Dombrowsky joked that journalists are always trying to get photos or film footage of her or other government officials that have them looking “funny” for one reason or another.
But the woman in charge of Ontario’s agricultural sector had no hesitation about tucking her coiffured hair inside a plain white and unflattering hairnet while on tour Thursday morning at the St-Albert Cheese Factory. Dombrowsky, a farm girl from Hastings County described the hairnet as a symbol of grade-A goodness for Ontario farm products.
“Take all the pictures of me you want wearing this,” Dombrowsky said. “What this represents is a company dedicated to food safety and to the quality of their product.”
The rural affairs minister was on a day tour of the Glengarry-Prescott-Russell riding of Liberal MPP Jean-Marc Lalonde. The St-Albert stop along the tour was so that management and staff at the St-Albert Cheese Factory and members of the farmers’ co-operative that support the factory could show off the latest additions to the facility’s milk-and-cheese processing equipment, bought with the aid of provincial support funding from the Eastern Ontario Development Program.
The new equipment helps speed up cheese-making at the factory and also increases the future potential productivity of the company once it succeeds in getting its milk quota increased.
Dombrowsky described the St-Albert Cheese Factory and the co-operative as an example of the kind of rural initiative and innovation that Ontario’s agricultural sector depends on to remain successful and competitive.
“You have faith in what you are doing and in your product, you are an inspiration,” she said. “You are a very big part of what makes agriculture a big success, what makes agriculture the second largest economic driver in Ontario. You stand as a beacon for others in the industry."