The Ontario Food Terminal will remain at its current Etobicoke location, the Progressive Conservative government announced Monday amid concerns that the facility was set to be moved.
Premier Doug Ford’s government launched a review of the site during the 2018 fall economic statement as part of a broader review of government spending and government owned land.
“We spoke with everyone who uses the facility: farmers, buyers, distributors, consumers, and restaurant owners,” said Agriculture Minister Ernie Hardeman.
“They all agreed our agri-food sector is best served by working to improve the Ontario Food Terminal at its current location.”
Hardeman cites the terminal’s proximity to restaurants, grocery stores and highways as a “major part” of the food terminal’s success.
The terminal has been a staple of the Queensway since 1954 and calls itself the “stock exchange” for fruit and vegetables — distributing two billion pounds of food annually to 5,000 registered buyers, some from as far away as Newfoundland and the Eastern United States.
An economic impact analysis conducted by the Ontario Food Terminal Board in April determined that 170,500 employees are either directly or indirectly impacted by the terminal, including growers, buyers, warehouse workers, and delivery services.
"I think people were concerned that it could possibly be moved," said Gary Sands, the Senior Vice President of the Canadian Independent Grocers.
Sands said the facility is "critical" to the province's independent grocers who rely on the terminal's wholesale prices and convenient location to keep costs down.
"If you move (the terminal) you're going to increase the cost, logistics, transportation costs, everything. That makes it extremely difficult for those independents to be able to compete."
NDP MPP Bhutila Karpoche believes there was "no need" to conduct the review in the first place, given that the results only reaffirmed the need for the terminal to remain in South Etobicoke.
"You cannot get a location better than this, because it's close to the city that it serves, close to highways, close to Pearson airport, so moving it absolutely did not make any sense whatsoever."
Karpoche says there was fear within the industry that the government was looking to sell the 40-acres of crown land to developers to turn into condos. She introduced a private members bill to ensure the land would continue to be zoned as commercial and not residential.
Hardeman says the review was intended to determine whether food distribution over the next quarter-century would change, necessitating a change in location.
"If we're going to have a review of how we distribute food in this province, we have to look at 25 years down the road is that still the place that would be the right location for it."
"You wouldn't want to make, year after year, greater investments in this facility if at some point and time you wanted to move it to a different facility."
Hardeman says the food terminal board will continue to examine ways to modernize the facility, without specifying exactly what needs to be modernized.
