The Government of Canada is working with the Canadian Red Cross and their partnership with the Chinese Red Cross to provide medical supplies and support towards the efforts to prevent and control the spread of the infection and support the work of local hospitals. The Red Cross Society of China was deemed best situated to direct the funds to the people who need it most in the areas that are affected by the virus, with its local staff ensuring the support can be effectively directed to assist impacted communities.
The donation was made by Donald’s Fine Foods, Conestoga Meats, Hylife, Maple Leaf, Olymel, Sunterra, Canada Beef, Canadian Pork Council, Canada Pork and the Canadian Meat Council.
According to the joint statement announcing the donation, the Canadian red meat industry has a long-standing relationship with China and has been hearing directly about the devastating impacts the virus has had on families and communities. It added that the industry has been monitoring the situation and wanted to do more to help.
“We see daily what an impact this virus has had on our customers in China and are aware of all the efforts made on the part of the Chinese to address it. We felt compelled to assist,” said Chris White, president of the Canadian Meat Council.
Canada Pork president Trevor Sears added: “Our industry has many business and personal friendships with the people of China and we have all been touched by the scale of this outbreak. We want to strategically assist our friends over the next few months to recover from the outbreak and return to normalcy.”
